Stories, stories, and more stories. Everyone loves a good story. We (mind) love to tell a good story. Furthermore, the stories we tell are part of our own personal storybook. The stories are a combination of every person’s experiences. A conditioned mind orchestrates these experiences according to its own design.
There would normally be no story or storybook if we were able to live in the moment. Likewise, anything other than the isness of now is a story. We create the paragraphs, the chapters, and the book itself. It is a book of fiction. But, the mind insists it’s real. Alas, it seems very tangible. However, most of what the mind tells us is not what has or what will happen. Nothing in this storybook is as it seems unless we decide that it has or will happen.
You may ask, Steve, what are you saying? I am not responsible for the people, situations or experiences that take place in each moment. It is true that any individual cannot truly change the behavior of a person. Nor, the details of a situation. However, it is possible for each person to change his or her point of perspective in each moment. It is very difficult for the mind to accept that nothing and everything is happening each second. Still, the key is in realizing that it is each person’s conscious awareness that determines the outcome of an experience.
You Don’t Need a Storybook to Live life
Nothing is really happening until we start to tell our story through memory, interpretation or expectation. The mind establishes a storybook according to this conditioned behavior. This story started at the dawn of our evolution. The mind repeats this storybook and the storybooks of all people throughout history to us. This is why you often feel fatigued, frustrated or perplexed. Each person carries personal and collective mind baggage as a colossal fictional mind storybook.
The mind-made story of our existence is as make-believe as the movies and books we read and watch. Even the stories based on actually events are in essence a fictional baggage that we carry with us. But, the isness of now is different. It simply is. You, me, everyone, and everything are in this moment. Similarly, how we observe the mind and our relationship with it determines how we experience living. That’s it. Enlightenment is that simple when we are ready. Living fully absorbed in presence frees us from the minds storybook. The mind may continue to scream for attention with random outbursts of thoughts, emotions, and ego. But these will subside as we practice staying in the now.
Wishing you a happy and safe day!