Great book recomendation

I am reading the greatest book ever written...The Power of Now. I cant really describe the impact it has had on my mind but lets just say there is no going back....i will never view my life in the same way from this point on...i may choose to revert back to old ideals but i will still have the knowledge of something else. That "something else" is the freedom gained when we live in the NOW.

The author explores all the issues that arise when we "become our mind". We are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are mutations of a dead past and an imaginary future...neither having any real impact on the moment. Yet we have so identified our self with our thoughts that it is difficult to separate from them. This union creates an ego, which takes us on a journey of fear....the ego fears death. To guard against death the ego creates some really destructive systems to cope with the inevitable (jealousy, fear, anger, worry, insecurity,etc) And we live in these systems with momentary relief that comes when circumstance meets our approval (which is rare).

True relief can be found by simply being in the now....just being! He points out that we are in an unconscious state of mind when we are controlled by our thoughts. We can shift from unconsciousness to consciousness simply by becoming a "watcher". We begin to listen, without judgement, to our thoughts. This wakes us up from the nightmare and we begin to see that nothing is wrong! We created all the drama!!!

the security of knowing our insecurities Part two

A fan of ElectricMilk raised an interesting point in a comment on Part 1 with regard to insecurities being good or bad. Let the record stand that i believe insecurites are for the most part negative influences in our lives, however, i believe they stem from primal instincts that once helped us to survive. Those instincts kept us alive long enough to develop insane mental capacity and now they are somewhat no longer needed (until survival is threatened again...then we'll be glad they are around) Looking at the animal world, emotions like jealously, greed, fear, anxiety, anger....actually keep the strong animals alive and ensure they reproduce with other strong animals. The difference is they dont (not that i am aware of) lay in their bed all night feeling depressed or carry those emotions very far into the future....we do. I think they have limited imiginations keeping them from going too far with survival emotions. We, on the other hand, have developed very complex imiginations that respond to any stimuli we give them. I think this is where insecurities are born! Everyone is insecure because it is easy...its instinctual (literally). It takes disipline, education, concentration, and time to overcome insecurities. I think knowing this about our insecurites helps us to forgive ourselves for being insecure...we are only products of species evolution. In a way, knowing this removes the guilt we feel for being insecure and lets us make peace with the demon. We can begin to understand ourselves instead of fight ourselves. I am not my enemy and nothing inside my brain is my enemy...if something is giving me problems...it is probably because i dont understand its purpose or origin. We tend to fear what we dont understand!!! Another instinct kicking in....lets be afraid until we figure out if this is friend or foe...we default with foe so we dont DIE!!!

The security of knowing our insecurities Part 1

I constantly have to remind myself that there is no arrival point when exploring my conciousness. We never stop growing!! I have been experiencing some recient growing pains as i try to sort thru my insecurities as a human. The deeper i dig into my mind the more i realize the expansiveness of my insecurities. As soon as i think i have them contained another root emerges and leads to another tree of anxiety that can be very uncomfortable sometimes.
I am slowly getting a grasp on what insecurites are. Insecurity is our attempt to avoid the pain caused by life and others by creating mental copeing systems. The types and sources of insecurities are endless and the way they manifest themselves into "our actions" is extremly varried. Insecurity is tricky because it really means well. By that i mean, its intention is to protect us from getting hurt. The problem with insecurities are they are not flexible...they do not adapt to different situations. They become our default method of handling all high risk situations (situations where our ego might get hurt). Our inability to adjust is what gets us hurt. I am not placing all the blame on poor old insecurity...when we get hurt emotionally be assured it is a very complex blend of ego, instinct, past experience, and fear that causes us to percieve hurt. I say ''Percieve" hurt because that is all it is...our perception. We cant get hurt...we choose(unknowingly) to get hurt because our ego percieves a threat or our insecurites kick in. And there is nothing wrong with this reaction at a base level, survival level. It is an instinct that has allowed us to exist this long, but we are poor masters of our powerful brains. Either because of laziness or lack of evolution we allow our minds to control us.

to be continued....