Mind Freedom Exercise - Mind Puzzle

Mind Puzzleby Al Link and Pala Copeland, the Official Guides To Tantra

Time for Exercise:

15 minutes to one hour

Properties Required:

none

Steps:

1. Ask yourself the following questions. The first question is the most important one. All the other questions follow from that one. The first question is: “Who am I?” Some common answers might include: your name; your various roles (occupation, parent, child, employer, employee, lover, spouse, friend, neighbor); your personality; your beliefs; your values; your accomplishments; your knowledge, skills, and abilities; your possessions; your goals and vision; your body; your thoughts; and your feelings.
2. These next questions can be taken in any order. Pick and choose as you like.

• What if all of the things mentioned above were taken away from you—one at a time, or all at once? Who would be left? Don’t let this question scare you. Just let it play around in your consciousness and see what comes up.
• Is the “self” something that can be contained within the limits of any or all of your answers and the above categories?
• Does a body have consciousness, or does consciousness occupy a body? What is consciousness?
• Does the body have a soul, or does the soul have a body? What is the soul?
• How can you explain experiences when someone’s consciousness travels through space and time separately from his body? What do such experiences suggest about the nature of consciousness?
• In what sense is your personality only a mask you present to the world? Can you allow yourself to change your mask? Why? When? How? What is the “self” if you change your personality?
• Is the nature of “self” material, like matter and particles, or non-material, like energy and consciousness? Is the “self” both material and non-material? Can the non-material “self” exist/operate/know independent of and separated from the material body?
• What is before birth? What does the “self” come out of? What is after death? What does the “self” return to?
• We know that bodies die. Can the “self” die with the body?
• We know that energy and matter cannot be destroyed. Can consciousness be destroyed? Or like energy and matter, can it just change forms, or move to a different place/level/reality?
• If your existence is neither limited to nor dependent upon the body, how would that change how you live, what you decide to do or not do, how you treat the people you love, and how you treat neighbors or strangers?
• If your existence is neither limited to nor dependent upon the body, how would that change how you think about birth, life, and death?
• Who or what is God? Can you know God as a direct personal experience?

Variation:

Talk about your ideas with your lover.

Comments:

Enrich yourself by asking these profound questions. Be open to some surprises. Let the mystery enter into your experience.

Excerpted from our new book Sensual Love Secrets for Couples: The Four Freedoms of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, by Al Link and Pala Copeland, Llewellyn, 2007.