“If our minds are not clear about what we are facing, we shall inevitably, consciously or unconsciously, slip [relapse] into inaction of wondering what to do about it. There are a thousand people who will tell us what to do—the specialists and the cranks. Before we understand the complexity of the problem, we want to operate on it—[we want to fix it]. We are more concerned to act than to see the whole issue.

The real issue is the quality of our mind, not its knowledge, but the depth of the mind that meets knowledge. Mind is infinite; [it] is the nature of the universe, which has its own order, has its own immense energy. It is everlastingly free. The brain, as it is now, is the slave of knowledge and so it is limited, finite, fragmentary. When the brain frees itself from conditioning, then the brain is infinite. Then only is there no division between the mind and the brain. Education then [re-discovering the infinite] is freedom from conditioning, from the vast accumulated knowledge of tradition.”[1]

This might sound like I’m preaching, but I want you to know—and I hope many of you already understand—after hearing my message for the past seven years—that this comes from my heart, with the love I feel for you guys.

We can’t think our way out of addiction; we have to feel our way out, and the only way out is to look within. We must stop thinking and start feeling—by opening our hearts to feel love again. We must open our hearts enough to receive unconditional love from this community until we learn how to feel love for ourselves again.

That’s why we came to CeDAR. We came here because we were trapped in our unaware minds, overthinking, and our minds were exhausted—we were hitting the bottom of our mental suffering. Overthinking is nothing more than constantly repeating the past; our first addiction is to thinking. We are addicted to thinking, which leads to every other addiction we add on. For me, that’s what addiction means: I just keep adding on more things to help my unaware mind keep thinking about how to repeat the past because that’s all it knows: more alcohol, more drugs, sex, gambling, people, you name it—we are addicted to adding more things, anything that is outside of us to distract us or trick us into thinking we can quiet the mind by using; to stop us from feeling those emotions from the past or understanding the fear of losing what we think we know about the future, which is only imagining a different version of the past.

So, we use our drugs of choice to stop feeling the pain of our mental suffering from overthinking—the past—what we know, what is already implanted in the brain. We use our addiction to stop remembering events and reliving past emotions. We use our addiction to stop worrying about losing what we know, wanting our experiences to be better or more—than what we have already experienced in the past. We are here—at CeDAR—to stop overthinking and start feeling again, to start feeling what we feel right now—in the present moment!

So, tonight’s topic is a couple of feeling questions: Since detoxing and getting sober, do you feel less judgmental and more understanding about how your mind works? Do you feel your mind slowing down, getting quiet? Do you feel less chaotic from overthinking and more peaceful, surrounded by loving understanding? Are you beginning to feel the love within and letting it flow, opening your heart to receive unconditional love from this community, and expressing your feelings, which can heal your past (now), so you can love yourself again because it is always now? Please remember: nonjudgmentally revealing our past is healing our past with self-loving understanding. So, revealing our feelings is healing now!

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[1] J Krishnamurti’s Letters to His Schools: The whole movement of life is learning…, Krishnamurti Foundation, India, Imprint Unknown, pg. 150.

VAB  11-29-24 

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