De-Condition Your Mind
How to refresh a screen
: A widely accepted shortcut key to ‘refresh’ is the F5 key or CTRL + R in Windows desktop or laptop, and Command + R for MacOS.
How to refresh a mind?
Um…. Watch some Netflix????
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Is it even possible to refresh a mind? What would it take to wipe clean all the nonsense we’ve had crammed in there over generations of the wrong story?
Is it possible to think our way out of our capitalist mindset when the instrument we use for thinking has been deeply shaped and distorted by a human-centred, man-made system and culture?
We only know one way to think. We can’t stop thinking altogether. We need thinking for so many practical tasks. But do we need to think during every waking moment?
And if not – is there a way to pause the activity of thought in a manner that would 1) offer restfulness to our overburdened, tangled up minds, and 2) de-condition our brains from generations of wrong education, consumerism and societal shaping?
If our habits – indeed our very lives – give perpetual expression to the concept that humans rule supreme and nature doesn’t matter, how do we change our habits from feeding into those human-centric values and start living according to our own values, with nature at the core?
Core : central to the existance or character of someone or something.
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Maybe We Need Smart Tech
I wonder if there exists some clever technology that can clear away our troubled thoughts and leave our minds refreshed. All those useless thought-habits we create that deplete our energy and separate us from life itself. How can we transform this dire situation and come fully alive again?
We think up anxieties, desires, fantasies, fears, petty ambitions, conflicts, rigid opinions, judgements, vanities, conclusions, depression, anger, jealousies, greed – all these traps we fall into that draw us away from a state of peace, harmony, innocence, contentment.
Imagine if such technology existed – what a transformation that would offer to our lives and to society and to the world.
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You walk past that little stream each working day, but you don’t actually see that little stream. No matter how that little stream tries to engage your interest, you don’t hear it. Some nonsense or other has occupied your mind instead. You’re lost in thought.
In that way, you’ve separated yourself from that little stream and from all the other life in your surroundings. Your thoughts have taken possession of you. You’re living in your head again, while your poor heart lies waiting behind a locked door, longing for nourishment, longing for the light.
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What if that little stream is the clever technology that can cleanse away the burdens from our minds?
That little stream is who we are at our essence. We are not different from nature and nor is that little stream. We fit together.
Essence: the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract which determines character.
If you don’t believe me, try sitting beside that stream for seven whole minutes – giving time, observing closely, so that you find it impossible to hold a single thought in your head. Try it again tomorrow. And the next day…. Seven minutes. See what happens.
Will you make time to do it? Would you have the courage to do it? What if people notice you sitting there beside the stream on your way home from work – as if you have nothing better to do? They’ll think you’ve lost it. Would you do it anyway? What if it meant saving your child from falling into the same traps that we all have? (Remember, we learn by what we see our parents and society doing rather than what they tell us.) Would you spend seven minutes sitting by that stream if it helped to turn this ship around? Can you see how this simple activity might help you to de-condition your cluttered mind? Go on then – I dare you to try it.
So Nature is the clever technology that wipes away the burden of generations of the wrong story. That little stream, those moving leaves. No scientific research needed. It’s nothing extraordinary or strange. It’s nothing new. You haven’t just discovered something no one else has ever done before. It’s only unusual now -during this epoch of the great disconnect from nature. It’s just run-of-the-mill- normal life in pre-capitalist cultures that follow the Laws of Nature.
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Intimate Relationships
If you’ve allowed the ‘happy couple/happy family’ ads to subtly colonise your mind, you’re likely to be placing an unrealistic burden on your partner to make you happy. The ads are selling home insurance, heating systems, alcoholic drinks or promoting ‘cosy home’ shopping as a pastime – flogging their message through the image of romantic love.
If you’re not looking through revelationary eyes, your mind might imprint this map and wander down the cul-de-sac of what a relationship should be like instead of seeing the reality of what relationship actually is.
So here’s a reminder: it’s unrealistic to hold the expectation that your intimate partner should make you happy. Finding happiness and finding out what makes you happy is entirely your work. But you don’t have to do it alone. Nature is the mirror to the soul that will help you to find happiness within yourself.
So go out under the night sky, or sit out on your porch and watch the day. Don’t just do it once. Make a new map by doing it repeatedly throughout the day – throughout your life. See if there’s light in what’s being suggested here.
You might already know, in theory, that no one else can make you happy – but does your behaviour towards your partner reflect this truth? Do you notice how you relate to your significant other – or are you both sleep-walking?
Conflict in human relationships of all kinds has become normal in the developed world. Our system of governance, with its focus entirely on making profit, drives us to work harder, think faster, buy more stuff, ‘get ahead’ – whatever that means.
This way of living is causing intense pressure of the kind that human beings were never intended for. There is no motive in our system of governance, nor therefor in our present-day culture, that supports and encourages inner peace, harmony and contentment. We rarely see examples of peace, harmony and contentment in our society.
So conflict in relationships spill over into society and the result is hate speech, intimidation, bullying, violence and increasingly – murder. Conflict in society makes life unbearable for those who love peace – and who, at their core, doesn’t? Conflict between the parents takes away the childhood from the child.
J Krishnamurti says: ‘You are part of society; to affect the whole, the part must transform itself.’
Peace is not the absence of violence. Peace can come to you like the flick of a switch. The state of peace is an intrinsic feature of what it is to be a human being. And nature helps you to find that inner switch and to maintain that state of peace within yourself each day.
Intrinsic : belonging naturally, essential.
So the practice of allowing your mind to frequently rest in nature, carries the potential to cause fundamental transformation in all your relationships, and therefor in society.
The burden of expectation on someone else to make you happy is too great for the human being to withstand. It’s not natural. It’s not the way we were made.
Nature, on the other hand, knows exactly how to cause forgetfulness in us, so that thinking ceases and we can rest in the present – where peace comes upon us, unannounced, like a fresh little breeze.
Relationships of all kinds will flow more easily when each person finds that deep connection with nature as their number one relationship in life.
Your relationship with each other can then flow from there – in peace, free from neurotic expectations, to just be what it is without pressure or expectations.
If there is conflict going on between you – if there is agitation or resentment or hurt or hateful feelings happening in one of you or both – don’t have a fight in a building. Pause it for a moment – take your argument out into the fresh air. Allow nature to bear witness to your darkened hearts. Try it out and see if something changes within you.
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Indigenous cultures don’t seem to need science to find out how this link between nature and the human psyche works – it’s written into the foundation of their culture.
Dianne Biritjalawuy Gondarra is a Dhurili woman from North East Arnhem Land. She is a cross-cultural consultant and educator who works to promote dialogue, understanding and awareness between her culture and mainstream Australian culture. She speaks about her people’s law, – the Madayin law and how this law creates ‘a state of magaya (harmony & peace) and offers protection for our women, our men, and our children.’
Observance of Madayin creates a state of balance, peace and true justice, known as Magaya. Rom
Capitalism – our system – with it’s core motivation to make profit, will never create peace and harmony. Fact.
If you and I want change in this world, with nature as our ally, then you and I must find the capacity to locate peace and harmony within ourselves and live by it. It’s not rocket-science – but rather Nature’s science. So stand beside nature and locate that inner switch to turn on peace within yourself.
If we each can make peace the foundation on which we firmly stand, harmony and kindness will spill over into all of our relationships.
That little stream, those tall trees, the vast ocean – all exude peace. Until you find your own path to peace – watch, listen to nature with your heart and wait. Peace will come.
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Science, no matter how hard it tries to divide everything up, cannot separate us from nature. We are part of a whole unit, an entire, complete, self-regulating living entity.
Self regulating : regulating itself without intervention from external bodies.
For this wondrous world to work smoothly, every aspect of life must be self regulating. Every insect, every leaf and bee and badger – every other sentient being living in nature knows this instinctively. Each plays their part – never letting down the whole.
These other-than human beings are not more intelligent than we are – we are the same as each other, so we have the capacity within us to live properly in this world. The only difference is that they have the advantage of never having been led astray by trillions of euro worth of advertising. They are not regulated from an external body with makey-uppy laws, but from an internal connection to the web of life.
What happens when we step out of that self-regulating, timeless system by separating ourselves from nature for a few generations, is written across the world for all to see. We don’t need more research or theories – we already have the evidence. Now is the time for action, not more research to scientifically prove what everyone else has always known.
Capitalism’s regulations are contrary to nature’s laws and it’s capitalism’s regulations that regulate us. Please see this fact.
The deeply rooted laws of self-regulation that humanity has followed since the dawn of time, have been thrown out and forgotten. But they’ve not been forgotten by nature. And we are nature, so we have the ability to find them again – by turning to nature.
So create a multitude of small opportunities in your daily life where nature – the entities that are not conditioned by capitalism – can work on you – to bring you back home. Nature will reclaim you as one of her own, peace will become an intrinsic feature of who you are and the capitalist spell will be broken.
Entities : a thing with distinct and independant existence.
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A Magical Encounter
One winters day, when I was about ten or eleven years old, I went to visit my grandmother the usual way. I left our house on the hill, scuttled down the bush track, took off my shoes and crossed the cold water of the creek onto Nana’s beach. It was a fine winter morning – sunny, with a fresh breeze.
Except for the usual group of pelicans, there was rarely anyone on that beach during the winter months and I savoured the chance to be alone with the sea.
But that particular morning there were two boys sitting on the sand, side by side. Their knees bent towards their chests, their hands clasped loosely around their ankles. They were watching the sea.
They weren’t watching intently, as if there was some purpose in their watching. Yet they weren’t idling away time either.
They weren’t talking to each other. They were sitting there, motionless, with their attention on the sea.
There was a particular kind of depth about them – a maturity beyond their years – a timeless quality that I somehow recognised but couldn’t name.
It was as if they were in a bubble, removed from all the trials and trivialities of the human world. As if they’d become more sea than human.
They were just boys – about fifteen years old. I noticed the moment I saw them that I had not the slightest fear of them. The usual anxiety I felt around boys from my own culture was simply not there.
They showed no interest in me, not even turning their heads to look in my direction, although I knew they were aware of my presence.
As I walked along beside the creek, behind where they were sitting, I felt a longing to go over to them. I wished I could be friends with them and sit there beside them and yet be alone, as they each appeared to be.
Of course I knew that was impossible. They were Aboriginal boys – I was a little white girl who lived in a house that belonged to her parents on land that once, not long before, had been theirs. The invisible wall was there between us – impossible to pass through.
But them being there, on my Nana’s beach – me seeing them sitting watching country in that manner – effected me deeply. It was as if we three were the only people in this whole vast world – the crashing of the waves taking us over.
The memory of that encounter has stayed with me as a precious gift ever since.
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So you see, this work is not an academic exercise or an exploration of theories. We’re asking you to expose your minds to that which has not been colonised by our governing system – the one that is destroying the natural world.
Talking about it to other people from the dominant culture might be enjoyable, even exciting and inspiring – nothing wrong with that. But will talking to others lead you to live your own life differently?
Or will we carry on as before? And let’s remind ourselves – different to how we live now is what it’s going to take to turn this ship around. Sameness won’t do it.
And as we’ve seen in the previous chapters, taking on the immense problems of the world only robs us of our energy, so there goes our one chance – the ability to change ourselves – for which we will need immense energy to carry it through.
It’s us, you and me, that must take this step. The politicians are not going to do this. They are caught up in a competative, unsustainable system. The land-owners and farmrs have been trained to heed subsidies. They no longer listen to the land speaking. So this is your challenge and mine. And it’s within our reach.
There’s no place for screens in this particular aspect of the work. We’re training our attention to turn towards something that hasn’t been put together by thought, something not man-made or conditioned by human-centric capitalism.
So that just leaves everything and everyone else in the creation except us. And that, dear reader, is the key to this work.
Can you see that? Nature – the natural environment – the ocean, all the birds that haven’t yet become extinct, the rivers, the mountains, the remaining trees and flora, the animals, the small percentage of insects still here, the air we breathe, the earth beneath our feet, the wind and the fire and all the pure elements that have never gone to school nor stood in a queue at a supermarket, nor bought a single item of clothing nor received government subsidies.
All those entities that don’t read books or handle money or aspire to greatness. The ones that don’t drive bulldozer-tractors or stare at screens. The ones that live in the actual world – conduits for that eternal life force that flows through their lives – unimpeded by perpetual thinking.
The ones that have the power to ignite joy in the human heart and bring peace to our minds. The ones that didn’t cause the mess we’re in. The ones who silently witness the degradation and immense stupidity of the human family brainwashed by capitalism. The ones we don’t consider. The ones whose homes and lives we destroy without even noticing. They’re the only ones who can help us to break the spell and set ourselves free.
These are the ones who will partner us to de-condition our minds so we can return to our own values and be self-regulating like every other living being – just as we were born to do.
We are the only species on earth that has had it’s thinking distorted by a saturation of human-centred societal conditioning. Squirrels, lakes, wasps, flowers, robins and clouds – all the rest – are immune to advertising.
So let nature refresh your mind. Please do this one thing. Do it every day. Over and over. Until it becomes who you are.
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Photo by Jan Alexander: Her Ladyship in January – inviting us back to the wild, free dance of life.