If your mind is a prison

[StarStruck]

What is the key to get out of the prison ?

[LastThursday]

You don't need a key, just tunnel out. It's hard work and you can't tell anyone and you have to cover the tunnel with a poster, but it can be done. 

But seriously, it all starts with self-awareness. The first step is to realise you're in a prison. Then you use the shovel of self-awareness to dig through the brick wall of the traps and tricks of the mind. Self-awareness allows you to step outside your normal every day mind, and observe it. Everyone has the potential for self-awareness, but something needs to activate it. Unfortunately, what that something is isn't in your control.

[gettoefl]

mind tells you that you are mind and body

no, you are the watcher of these

so start watching

[StarStruck]

19 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

You don't need a key, just tunnel out. It's hard work and you can't tell anyone and you have to cover the tunnel with a poster, but it can be done. 

But seriously, it all starts with self-awareness. The first step is to realise you're in a prison. Then you use the shovel of self-awareness to dig through the brick wall of the traps and tricks of the mind. Self-awareness allows you to step outside your normal every day mind, and observe it. Everyone has the potential for self-awareness, but something needs to activate it. Unfortunately, what that something is isn't in your control.

I found this the hard way and after two years of therapy..    for me therapy was used to further entrench myself in my mind but I guess I needed that trench warfare to find that wisdom 

[Princess Arabia]

You are already on the way by being aware of it. Can't free someone who doesn't know they have been enslaved. Only thing is we're the ones enslaving ourselves through ignorance, so awareness is the key to mental freedom.

[Razard86]

The mind is a conceptual prison. The prison is your opinion on everything in life. So basically your entire world view. How do you escape the prison?

1. Deconstruct your worldview. You are currently in a character state of mind. If you want to escape this state you need to first question all your beliefs. Second you need to alter your state in some way i.e. meditation, drug use, sensory depravation tank, or other methods don't feel like listing them all but you need to alter your state significantly from your normal baseline state. This will make your mind more fluid.

2. Once in a fluid state....start letting go of everything.....EVERYTHING. Let go of the belief that you were born, that you have parents, that there are others, that time and space exist....etc...

Now if you are not trying to go that far and you just asking for help on broadening your perspective just do this simple exercise. 

Close your eyes, drop your current perspective and put yourself in another person's perspective. Think about what emotions come up for that person, what fears they have, what motivates them and maybe then you can escape the prison of your worldview enough to gain another perspective. Don't worry about it making sense for your character, learn for it to make sense for the person.

Example: I know why a terrorist would blow himself up for his religion. I understand that from his perspective he is doing the right thing because his frame of reference is so narrow. I understand that if I were to wipe my own memory and were given his memory and body....I would do the exact same thing as him. So he can only act based on what he knows and how he interprets what he knows.

[Princess Arabia]

 

[cjoseph90]

1 hour ago, Razard86 said:

The mind is a conceptual prison. The prison is your opinion on everything in life. So basically your entire world view. How do you escape the prison?

1. Deconstruct your worldview. You are currently in a character state of mind. If you want to escape this state you need to first question all your beliefs. Second you need to alter your state in some way i.e. meditation, drug use, sensory depravation tank, or other methods don't feel like listing them all but you need to alter your state significantly from your normal baseline state. This will make your mind more fluid.

2. Once in a fluid state....start letting go of everything.....EVERYTHING. Let go of the belief that you were born, that you have parents, that there are others, that time and space exist....etc...

Now if you are not trying to go that far and you just asking for help on broadening your perspective just do this simple exercise. 

Close your eyes, drop your current perspective and put yourself in another person's perspective. Think about what emotions come up for that person, what fears they have, what motivates them and maybe then you can escape the prison of your worldview enough to gain another perspective. Don't worry about it making sense for your character, learn for it to make sense for the person.

Example: I know why a terrorist would blow himself up for his religion. I understand that from his perspective he is doing the right thing because his frame of reference is so narrow. I understand that if I were to wipe my own memory and were given his memory and body....I would do the exact same thing as him. So he can only act based on what he knows and how he interprets what he knows.

well said, +1

[enzyme]

It doesn't feel like a prison when we're newborn.  To be alive itself feels amazing and everything is fresh and pristine.

The key, so to speak, would be to undo the years of bad programming from our parents and peers that deepened our sense of ego and return to our blissful, natural state of existence itself.

[NoSelfSelf]

Gratitude,belief in yourself,seeing that you are imprisoning yourself actually senting message to stop you ,shadow integration,not believing and trusting your mind since its lying to you all the time, self trust vs cult mentality etc.

Edited October 9, 2023 by NoSelfSelf

[Razard86]

22 minutes ago, NoSelfSelf said:

Gratitude,belief in yourself,seeing that you are imprisoning yourself actually senting message to stop you ,shadow integration,not believing and trusting your mind since its lying to you all the time, self trust vs cult mentality etc.

Your mind doesn't lie to you all the time. If it did...you couldn't undo the lies because it would just lie forever so you could never escape the lies. The mind does have a capacity for truth as well. It can only seem like it lies all the time...if you train it to be that way. 

[Osaid]

The only thing mind can imprison is mind.

[UnbornTao]

Mind is whatever it is. Can't transcend something you're not conscious of. And even then, I suspect it would still have a huge influence in your experience. Language, communication, knowledge, and understanding are part of mind; you'd be free from it but still using it. We must not confuse simplistic analogies with the reality of what we're talking about. 

So our job is to know what the mind is.

Edited October 18, 2023 by UnbornTao

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

Love. Your mind is not a "prison" per se, it's just that there is nothing outside of it, thus it might feel like you're "trapped" inside of it. I'd try to stay away from framing your relationship to mind in such a negative light. You're basically resisting that which is right now. If you don't want right now to be the way it is, right now, you might feel stuck in some kind of prison from which you can't escape. Most people react by doing drugs, playing video games, having sex, working out real hard, or whatever, but it's not going to change that fundamental feeling of powerlessness.

Start by generating higher levels of gratitude. Your resistance towards acceptance is the prison you're trying to break free from. Allow that resistance and just sit with it. Can you recontextualize is in your direct experience? Not as a concept, but your actual experience of resistance in this moment? Imagine trying to take a picture of something and you're trying to find the right perspective. Similarly, are there any interpretations other than "imprisonment" that you can find? Find as many as you can, you can write them down if you want. The point isn't to find a correct interpretation, but to become aware of the different possibilities. This can create a sense of openness and spaciousness inside your mind, open mindedness if you will.

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by DefinitelyNotARobot

[Princess Arabia]

2 hours ago, Osaid said:

The only thing mind can imprison is mind.

All is mind

[SeaMonster]

13 hours ago, StarStruck said:

What is the key to get out of the prison ?

To realize you're the prison guard.

[NoSelfSelf]

@Razard86 If you dont see that its lying to you all the time then you are in mind prison.

It has capacity for truth thats when it gains your trust so it can lie to you

You cant train something that you have trust in, or you realized at one point it lies to you all the time with truth here and there then now you can train it...

[StarStruck]

17 hours ago, Razard86 said:

The mind is a conceptual prison. The prison is your opinion on everything in life. So basically your entire world view. How do you escape the prison?

1. Deconstruct your worldview. You are currently in a character state of mind. If you want to escape this state you need to first question all your beliefs. Second you need to alter your state in some way i.e. meditation, drug use, sensory depravation tank, or other methods don't feel like listing them all but you need to alter your state significantly from your normal baseline state. This will make your mind more fluid.

2. Once in a fluid state....start letting go of everything.....EVERYTHING. Let go of the belief that you were born, that you have parents, that there are others, that time and space exist....etc...

Now if you are not trying to go that far and you just asking for help on broadening your perspective just do this simple exercise. 

Close your eyes, drop your current perspective and put yourself in another person's perspective. Think about what emotions come up for that person, what fears they have, what motivates them and maybe then you can escape the prison of your worldview enough to gain another perspective. Don't worry about it making sense for your character, learn for it to make sense for the person.

Example: I know why a terrorist would blow himself up for his religion. I understand that from his perspective he is doing the right thing because his frame of reference is so narrow. I understand that if I were to wipe my own memory and were given his memory and body....I would do the exact same thing as him. So he can only act based on what he knows and how he interprets what he knows.

It is not mind per se. It is judgement aka the forbidden fruit that cast out Adam and Eve from Eden. To get back to Eden we need to let go of judgement.

 

5 hours ago, SeaMonster said:

To realize you're the prison guard.

True

12 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Love. Your mind is not a "prison" per se, it's just that there is nothing outside of it, thus it might feel like you're "trapped" inside of it. I'd try to stay away from framing your relationship to mind in such a negative light. You're basically resisting that which is right now. If you don't want right now to be the way it is, right now, you might feel stuck in some kind of prison from which you can't escape. Most people react by doing drugs, playing video games, having sex, working out real hard, or whatever, but it's not going to change that fundamental feeling of powerlessness.

Start by generating higher levels of gratitude. Your resistance towards acceptance is the prison you're trying to break free from. Allow that resistance and just sit with it. Can you recontextualize is in your direct experience? Not as a concept, but your actual experience of resistance in this moment? Imagine trying to take a picture of something and you're trying to find the right perspective. Similarly, are there any interpretations other than "imprisonment" that you can find? Find as many as you can, you can write them down if you want. The point isn't to find a correct interpretation, but to become aware of the different possibilities. This can create a sense of openness and spaciousness inside your mind, open mindedness if you will.

 

Beautiful, but at the end you need your mind too, in my opinion it is brain-heart coherence, the two need to work together, overpowering mind is destructive in the same way an overpowering heart is just as destructive. In actual relationships you should use both mind and your heart, in spirituality it is not different.

The key is mind-body connection or in other words brain-heart coherence!

https://alleviant.com/12-benefits-of-brain-heart-coherence/

Edited October 10, 2023 by StarStruck

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

1 hour ago, StarStruck said:

The key is mind-body connection or in other words brain-heart coherence!

Of course. Gratitude alone won't get you to awaken. Uniting heart and mind, or love and truth, is important towards reaching higher magnitudes of love and understanding. I was just focusing on the heart side of things because I wanted to counterbalance the whole prison idea.