Your Mind - Your Friend Or Your Enemy?

Is your mind your friend or your enemy? How does your mind become your enemy, instead of being your friend? How does it become an obstacle in your pathway to self-discovery and ultimate enlightenment?

Descartes, the great philosopher, made his famous statement: “I think, therefore I am.” Accordingly, we think and we then become what we think we are—the products of our thoughts. Unfortunately, this famous statement by Descartes is only partially true: it is true that we identify ourselves with our thoughts projected into our minds; but it is not true that our identities thus created by our thoughts are our true selves. In that respect, your mind may become your enemy, because it gives you a false image of your true self, and you are not what and who that you think you really are. 

Reflective Thought

Your mind is doing you a disservice because it is not telling you the absolute truth about who and what you really are.

Case in Point

Negative thoughts create a negative image of self, but that negative image can be changed into a positive one through positive thinking, as proved by many scientific studies. So, your identity created by your thoughts is not a true reflection of who you really are. You think you are somebody, but, in fact, you are not!

If our perceptions of who we really are, or our true identities are affected by our distorted thinking and thoughts, then our minds have become our enemies, and not our friends.

The crucial question is: “How do you stop your mind from working for or against you?”

Honestly, it is very difficult, because we are all compulsive thinkers; that is, we think continuously—even in our sleep in the form of dreams in our subconscious minds. Because our minds are thinking non-stop, we are constantly identifying ourselves with our thoughts in our subconscious minds, whether we want it or not. In order to stop our minds from controlling or using us to our disadvantage, we must be able to stop our thinking whenever we choose to. In other words, we would have to “switch off” our minds, just as we turn off our computers. That may be a little difficult, but not totally impossible.

Truly, we can never totally stop our minds from thinking for an indefinite length of time; after all, we all need our minds to think, don’t we? But we can give our minds a short, meaningful break every now and then, just as we switch off our computers when we are not using them.

The Book of Life and Living is a 190-page book on how to use your mind to your advantage and live your life as if everything is a miracle, The Wisdom of Letting Go shows you the importance of letting go to attain profound human and spiritual wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau