I will turn the lights on

Somebody wrote to me recently:

I am trying to balance receiving guidance with the actual putting it into practice, and I admit that I sometimes fall into intellectual fascination for these discussions and I moreover need to put my ego aside and really listen.

I replied:

You can always escape from all complexity and from the ego by making yourself conscious, by leaving the lost-in-thoughts state. It’s the simplest thing in the world. It’s like turning the lights on. Anything that happens when the lights are on, is beneficial. You don’t have to care what is happening under the lights. The fact that the lights are on is all that matters.

He answered:

I will turn the lights on

Turn them on and keep them on.

If you don’t believe me, believe Annamalai Swami. He said:

You stumble around in the darkness of your mind, not knowing that you have a torch in your hand. That light is the light of the Self. Switch it on and leave it on and you will never stumble again. (From Annamalai Swami: Final Talks.)

3 thoughts to “I will turn the lights on”

    1. Hi Conrad. It depends on how you interpret the words “recognize existence” or “recognize I exist.” Most people who read those words will take them to mean a mental activity. They will try to “recognize” with their minds. This is NOT what I mean. What I mean is shifting yourself into a state in which you are more conscious. The best way I know to communicate what I mean by “turn the lights on” is to notice that you are not conscious when you are lost in thought. The only way you can notice that you are not conscious when you are lost in thought is by momentarily becoming more conscious. When you momentarily become more conscious, the lights are momentarily on. At various places on this blog, I’ve written about two different techniques for noticing this phenomenon of becoming more conscious (which we’re calling “turning the lights on”). One place is the home page of this site in the article “How to stop thoughts.” The other place is the article in this blog about Susan Blackmore’s technique of asking, am I conscious now?

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