Start to pay attention by using your capacity of awareness and notice if you are being led astray by spontaneous and untrue thoughts. Begin to question your thoughts. For example, ask yourself, is this thought true, or am I one-hundred percent sure that this will happen.

Know that everyone who begins on the path of self-discovery, self-inquiry, or the spiritual path, meets resistance from within through their thoughts, emotions, and physical body.

Sometimes this resistance is very subtle, and it requires focused attention to notice its trickery. It is in these subtle yet significant moments that we make a choice. Sometimes this choice is conscious, and sometimes it is not. However, with awareness, we watch. The space that we observe from let’s call it the observer position, for now, feels outside the body/mind.

From this position, we can observe our conscious decisions and see how they unfold. Even when choices are made out of habit, or they arise unconsciously, they can be seen by focusing our attention in awareness. Once seen, conditioning can dissolve, and habitual patterns can fall away.

You have experienced this watching before, we all have, and you may be doing it right now as thoughts come up about what I am saying. On the other hand, you may have noticed it when sitting quietly or out in nature. You discover how endless the stream of thoughts are and watch as they come and go.

It is paramount that you have direct experience of this because it is through direct experience that we open the door to making an essential shift. Otherwise, we will continue along in life living from our conditioning and habits, and never getting the chance to experience true freedom.

Instead, the subtle and dramatic deceptions of the mind and the thoughts that arise from it will keep us stuck. Stuck in a world of falsehood, and all the while, we will believe everything that crosses it to be completely accurate. To follow blindly will only lead to endless worry, fear, anger, and great suffering. Perhaps you already experience this in life. I am here to tell you there is another way, one that leads to greater peace and stability.