Elevate yourself through the power of your mind,
and not degrade yourself,
for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self.
—The Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 6, Verse 5
I’ve been reading what’s been dubbed a modern spiritual classic: I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. In a chapter on meditation, he says, “We are slaves to what we do not know; what we know, we are masters.” He was referring to using meditation in search of voices inside ourselves that offer weakness, so we can understand their causes and discover their workings. I thought he put it aptly when describing how “the unconscious dissolves when brought into conscious” because, on many occasions, I’ve found this dissolution feels like a tangible release of pent-up energy.
In the next line of the Bhagavad Gita quoted above, Krishna tells Arjun that “for those who have conquered the mind, it is their friend. For those who have failed to do so, the mind works like an enemy.” In recent years, I’ve gone on the ruthless search for unconscious stories that are no longer serving me, and yesterday, the term “trauma hunting” popped into mind. I feel this term brings forth the image of an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like figure in war paint, trouncing through the jungles of the subconscious in search of metaphorical Predators. And while ancient scriptures like the one referenced above can guide us in the right direction, only we can put on the war paint and slash through the jungle.
When you begin to dissolve those limiting beliefs by shining conscious awareness on them, you become less of who you are and more of who you could be. We alone are responsible for our own elevation or degradation in this regard. So, happy hunting, my friends.