Friend: Hi again, so I have started to practice and would like to work through a process with you. The perception is my mom telling me that she doesn’t like a dress because it is showing a bit of my chest. The emotion that I pinpointed is feeling angry that I am being shamed for having breasts. How do I get to the belief and the desire?
Dylan: Alright, this is beautiful stuff happening here. So, the perception is the mom character on the screen speaking words which reflect that she doesn’t like a dress because it is showing a bit of the body’s chest. The next step is to inquire into what egoic thoughts are underneath the anger that are arising within awareness.
Friend: The thought underneath the anger is, “She should not be making me feel ashamed of my breasts, especially because she birthed me.”
Dylan: Wonderful. Now that you have seen the egoic thought(s) you are going to look at the underlying beliefs, which can include expectations or preferences. You can inquire into what some beliefs may be.
Friend: Beliefs, I find this part the hardest! I believe her opinion can affect me; I believe my mom shouldn’t say things to make me feel angry or upset; I believe my mom shouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable with my body; I believe I am separate from my mom and can be hurt by the words that are said.
Dylan: Now that you have seen the false beliefs, per the diagram, the desire in all upsets will be separation. What I mean by this is the mind is desiring to overlook the one “goal” of peace of mind, the Peace of Being or to rest as the true Self, as It Is, to misidentify with the ego and its unloving thoughts.
Here, you can see how the ego is suggesting thoughts to you (the mind) in the form of that something which happened shouldn’t have happened, in an attempt to be right about something of the world—to try and preserve its seeming existence.
This upset is graciously allowing you to see that the mind has a split desire for something other than peace of mind: that something should be different than how it is for me to be at peace. That is that instead of experiencing the present experience of peace, I am going to align with the ego which is projecting this present experience of peace into a future goal: mom’s behaviour changing. Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual teachers name this “resistance to what is.”
This whole inquiry is just to bring the mind to a point where it can say I just want to be wrong about this split desire, I want to be wrong about how I am seeing things, so I can choose again this instant.
1) At first, the problem looked like:
I am upset because my mom said she doesn’t like a dress.
2) Having brought the upset back to the mind, it can now be seen that:
I seem to be experiencing upsetting emotions because I am misidentifying with upsetting thoughts that suggest, “She should not be making me feel ashamed of my breasts”; which is an effect of believing in the idea of separation, the false ego-self: that
1) I am a separate self that is separate from the world with separate events happening to me, and
2) I can then be a victim and shamed by someone other than myself; which is stemming from the root, split desire for something other than present peace of mind. The split desire that my mom’s behaviour needs to change, instead of the mind’s split desire, so that I can be happy, peaceful, and complete right now.
The split desire for something other than present peace, which by divine logic must result in lack of peace, is the same as saying that there is a split desire (of the ego) for something to be different than it is right now. That what is happening on the movie screen should be different and should be how the ego wants it to be, and I want to be right about it!!
Yet, this upset appeared to be projected onto mom or perception because I seemingly misidentified with these unloving thoughts and beliefs and was afraid of taking full responsibility for my state of mind.
Seeing the trick of the mind you can ask: Do I now want to be right about this split desire to be separate and for something to be different, or do I now want to be wrong and recognise that my mom, everyone else, and everything else is innocent because I was only misidentifying with and reacting to false thoughts of fear? Do I desire fully or singularly peace of mind now more than these split desires?
This is where the love and peace are remembered because the original Innocence and Unconditional Love of Being—the awareness Oneness (unity) or how you are not separate—is singularly desired and experienced.
Knowing nothing could be different than it is, all problems were just a misperception or a perceptual problem of thinking the idea of separation is real and had real effects, and then that something could be different than it is to justify my state of mind.
All fear is a lack of love and, therefore, it is corrected by Perfect Love, by Clarity!
Friend: So beautiful, thank you SO much for walking through this with me!! I was thinking about a way to inquire that resonates with me and this is it!!
Added closing note not originally added:
The ego always suggests, “If only something was different in perception, with that person or with that situation then I could be peaceful.” The true Self is always calling one’s awareness back to Itself saying, “Here I Am, Peace never left you.” It softly reminds one, “Remain here as unchanging Peace! Let thoughts arise and disappear, they are not who you truly are. Rest here in the peace, love and tranquillity of Being. Your state of mind is always up to you, as you have always had the power. You just needed to “Let thine eye be single,” let your desire, your focus, your attention be singular for peace right now.”
One Silent Mind 