Conscious awareness of mind's machinations

Relatively speaking, for the seeker/non SR/awake, there is a greater sense of well-being, absence of worry, anxiety, etc, when mind is focused on direct, present experiential content, vs. wandering around, traversing into memories of the past and imaginings of the future.

I learned that well in my late teens, getting too high on one drug or another. If I could just focus on the here and now....direct experience, nothing was actually amiss....it was only as focus moved into judgments, memories, imaginings of future that something seemed to be going terribly wrong....scary shit was happening.

And once awake...after clearly seeing that time itself is a mental overlay...not something that even really appears....and once the SVP is no longer in play, there is just naturally, a greater propensity for mind/attention to focus upon that which is directly appearing....hee and now happening, vs. migrating into thoughts/memories of past events....imagined future happenings.

That though does not mean that in SR there are never thoughts of past/future events of course... the idea of past/future still plays it's part in the overall unfolding story, but absent the SVP and it's deep, fundamental judgments, when mind does move into past/future thoughts, there's no stickiness there.

Yup. It's all about the presence vs. absence of "interest." The highest interest in always playing out. This is where E's "split-mind" enters in. It is possible for two or more competing interests to flow in and out and switch up, back and forth in terms of intensity at any given moment...and that's where get stuff like mind wandering even though we do think the book is a good one, or being firm that I am not going to smoke in one moment, and then an hour later, sucking away on a ciggy....and really, that changing of highest interest/intent is not all that problematic so long as it's seen for what it is....the highest interest...here...NOW....having it's way.

While being consciously aware as to mind's movements, mind's content/machinations does not equal "wakefulness/SR" the ability to directly look/see those places where ego rises up to try to protect/preserve sacred ideas and beliefs, is an immensely important facet of clarity.

Clarity of mind, awareness of what mind is doing...content of mind.... is a facet of being awake to the dream--in wakefulness/SR, the entire dream.....entire dream-scape is illuminated as "appearance"...temporal, ephemeral, absent inherent existence, in contrast to that which abides, and in that illumination, the wiley ways of mind/ego are much easier to notice as they are in play.

For anyone engaging in a conversation where the aim is to ferret out Truth, be it in person, on fb, on a forum, whatever, the arising of an egoic sense of aversion towards a direct, civil challenge, should (IF, there is truly a sincere interest in ferreting out the Truth!) be regarded as an opportunity for clarity.

If you suddenly recognize a sense of having your back up.....of wanting to ignore, cancel, delete, refuse to answer...or worse yet....ban/block someone who is calmly, civilly challenging your point of view while engaging in Truth-talk, there is an opportunity there to clearly see that that very sense/wanting to shut down the challenge, to protect the viewpoint/idea in question, IS the obstacle!....that sense/wanting goes hand in hand with an imagined SVP--the SVP of course, separation in general, is that which obscures the Truth of Oneness from shining through.

All of you on these forums who relish civil challenge of your ideas can rest assured that you are sincere and earnest in your quest for Truth. But if you find you turn away from/resist such challenge, that's a clear indicator that Truth is not in fact what you're actually after....and what you are presenting seeking is to fortify your present position....your present sacred idea/viewpoint.

Challenge of position...ideas...beliefs...viewpoint is plain and simply part and parcel of the self-inquiry inherent to clarity.

That sense of "no/avoidance" that arises when difficult challenge is posed to your espoused views, if you are interested in looking directly at it, is pure gold....an opening to going deeper...a gateway to clarity.

Just an observation;

The general stance on ST is that strong challenge and ongoing debates/dharma battles, are not welcome. But take a look at the numbers of visitors and how the views increased over there when the discussion between Reefs and I began...and now, here on Gab, since I came back and am commenting somewhat on the issues over there....views/visitors way up.

I wonder folks, do you think this is a situation that has "split-mind" behind it....or are folks just outright lying when they say they are not interested in strong spiritual debate/ongoing, uncompromising dharma challenge?