Images

       
One of tricky parts while looking for the mysterious "I" is to recognise what is real and what is imaginary. By real I mean that, which is here, you believe in it or not. Like this table, or computer or your fingers on keyboard pressing the keys. The sensation of breath coming in an out, the tingling feeling in the back, that, which is experienced. 

An image is mind created, it is not real, it can twist and change in a breath and can only be found in imagination. Close your eyes and recreate the room where you are sitting now together with your body in a chair and all that is around it. The image may be vivid, may be blurry, it may have a homely feel to it or be full of judgement about how bad this space is, but it is all just in imagination. When you open your eyes, the space is filled with things and you can go and touch them, feel them and compare to imagined things. 

When you remember something from the past, you see an image in the mind, then thoughts flow and tell a story, what was happening, how it felt, what came out of it. The past is made up of images and so is the future. Imagine yourself in  three years. Immediately mind starts constructing an image of some wants and wishes, hopes that this or that will be different, wining a lottery perhaps, and also fears that it may all go wrong. The feeling that gets triggered by the image is felt and is a real sensation which is arising in the now, regardless if the image is made up. The thought feeling connection is always at work.

Imagine you have a visitor. Someone you really like a lot comes to this room now and sits next to you, gives you a hug. The feeling is pleasant and you want it to last, perhaps mind goes on daydreaming, creating more images that have this pleasant, heart warming effect. 

Body reacts to real and to imaginary. It does not know the difference. If mind is holding a scary image of danger the body will tense up. Other day I was trimming a bush and I saw lots of bugs, that triggered a reaction of jumping off, but all it was a slightly different colouring on the branch, the body reacted as it was real, as strongly as if it was. 

The image of me is not a me. It appears as something real, something that needs to be protected and looked after, something that needs to manage life of me. But as soon as you start looking if there is reality behind that image, it becomes clear, that this 'me' is completely made up. There is no evidence in reality, that me is more then an image. If I asked you to touch that which you call "me", could you? Would you be touching chest or head? How about hearing that me, can you hear it now? 

People go around their lives lost in the mind, the now, that which is, is covered by a thick blanket of mental fog. The imaginary world seems to be more important than what is here, right now. Just notice, how whatever body does, it does regardless what images you are engaged in. There is a whole wold of experiencing right here, unnoticed, unappreciated, only because the images of past or future are taking the whole focus leaving only a tiny bit on what is actually happening . Mindful being is replaced by being in the mind. 

Do you care what others think of you? Do you try to protect the image of you, so your friends would think about you this way and not the other? Does it hurt if someone else's image of you is not what you would like your image to be perceived as? Do you get depressed and suffer over imaginary stuff? There really is no need for that at all. 

The mind itself knows, that images are not reality, but somehow it tricks itself into believing it otherwise and is working so hard and intensely to keep them images safe. As if an image can get hurt of something. 

Try this: close your eyes and see your body dead. Shocking? No? Look at that image from different angles, see it from eyes of another, perhaps your mum. Feel whatever comes up and notice how this image affects the body. Besides the feelings, does it affect anything else? The table, the chair, the screen is still here, nothing goes anywhere, the body is sitting comfortably too. The image is not reality. It can not affect what is. But it has a very big impact on how you feel. And how do you feel if there is no story going on in the head- relaxed, at peace,  joyful... like holiday...

The goal here is not to get rid of images, but to recognise that images and reality are NOT THE SAME. Then images can no longer create tensions in the body and as a result you can live more relaxed life and enjoy it. Then less and less images about past or future show up in the now. You don't need to worry about stuff that may or may not happen. 

When images are seen for what they are- mind created postcards of past or future, not to be taken seriously, mind relaxes. There is nothing that can happen to an image off a me. It is indestructible, same way that Batman can not die, neither can you as both are purely in imagination. :) Can you see that? 

What is here now experienced by senses is also an image created by the mind, but here now the imaginary me is not present. It belongs to the realm of daydream, fairy tales and fantasy world. We can tell stories about me but stories and reality are not to be mixed up if you want to see life as it is. Not as you imagine it to be. 

Imagination is a powerful creative force, love it, respect it, but please, check for yourself, if you live your life lost in a head and are missing what is really going on.  There might be a whole new world waiting to be discovered. One that is right under your nose, so obvious and so overlooked. 

Images from www.fredrikodman.com