The path to peace is a journey without distance to a place we have never left.
1.1 We have relationship with everything. Be it a rock, tree, animal, or person we have relationship with it through our individual perception. For many of us the bigger part of that relationship is unconscious. For instance, the inner voice says “Oh! That’s a cool shaped or colored rock”, or, “My dogs better than your dog” (stolen from Kennel Ration), or, “I really, really like/dislike that person”. All are an opinion, our perception based on our own individually developed beliefs. We often do not realize that those comments are made to our “selves” in the form of an internal conversation, e.g. “That’s a cool shaped rock. Yea, but it’s too big to tote off the mountain but, man, it would look good in my garden”.
What if someone told you that the only problem you have ever had is that internal conversation, the “voice” that takes both sides of whatever story happens to be in the mind at the moment, the one that crowd’s reality out and replaces it with our own self-produced movie and script. “What” you say, “about the voice that is conscious, the one that says “Let’s see 3/4s cup of milk is next and then the eggs” or, “So, Purina is .22 cents a pound and Kennel Ration is .19, which one do I buy” (This is really not a dog food commercial). Ah ha! A great question you ask yourself! As Eckhart Tolle (Power of Now author) would say “There must be two of me”. And, as Michael Singer (The Untethered Soul author) might say “Yea, there are two of me but one of them is a maniac”. You almost go to the head of the class but, there is still only one relationship. That is the relationship we have with our mind.
1.2 Once one recognizes there is a relationship with the mind perhaps the next step to enlightenment is the realization that one relationship is conscious and the other unconscious. Distinguishing one from the other becomes the path that takes us to the bridge of peace. The vehicle that takes us across is learning to let go of that inner voice by being conscious of both the unconscious and conscious voice and not listening, just refusing to take part in our own internal melodrama. Stop the “voice” and presence emerges, awareness of being aware of everything. This automatically creates a state of mind, a state of being where one can choose to use the analytical mind to solve problems instead of the emotional mind in reacting to them. Taking it one step further it just may be that in true enlightenment there are no problems to solve. Maybe true enlightenment is merely quieting the mind and allowing the state of peace to arise naturally. Then, we bring that state back to whatever is in front of us today, Now. That is the beginning of a relationship with Self. ACOL would say this is the root of creating the new elevated Self of form.
1.3 The question is: how do we direct our mind to choose the relationship of Self, the relationship of peace?
Presence is the key and focused awareness is the lock. Tolle says we can access presence by using what he calls “portals to the Now”. The five senses are each in and of themselves great portals to the Now. The sound of an egg beater; the smell of home made bread; the taste of butter and honey coupled with the texture of that first bite “oh, heaven above!” Whoops! Got a little carried away there. Is anyone else hungry all of the sudden? Focusing on the senses stops the mind, stops the chatter.
Drop the addiction to the “voice”. Your inner roommate is a maniac anyway, right? Don’t listen to it just notice there is no talking going on in there. Practice being aware that there is no “voice”.