Not thinking

“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.”
- Aristotle

Wherever you go, there you are is the title of a book I read with pleasure a decade or so ago. This morning it came to me anew that wherever I go, I meet myself. My mind is good at creating dreams, which is common for INFP types like me. But in the end, it is how I deal with each situation, how I live each moment, that counts. True value lies in me, rather than in the objects, feelings, and emotions I experience.

So how to tap more into me, and through myself, into the Universe? How do I conduct myself? This morning I felt sleepy. Perhaps I didn’t sleep enough? Or I should learn to manage myself better. After all, my trinity is spirit/soul, mind, and body. Life is good, but good life comes through management, taking charge, of being aware of the choices in each moment, and then acting accordingly. So when I feel challenged by being tired, I should "straighten my back" and tell my body to cooperate.

After some early successes, my determination to get up at 5 am has become a challenge. Allowing myself to return to slumber signalled the end of my good intentions. I simply cannot allow that to happen, but I have done it over and again. I need to get better in taking charge of my moment of waking up, to take the bull by the horns and not give in. It all comes back to awareness, in every moment. Like Eckart Tolle says, there is power in the now. Each time I read that book, I realize its truth.

Yet for a mere mortal like me, I think Steve Pavlina’s advice might also help me be successful in the early morning. Steve cautions the millions who read his blog against thinking anything at the moment of waking up. In stead, he says we should condition ourselves to step out of bed like a robot, without any thought or feeling. Like everything else, that needs practice, which he tells people to do in the daytime when they are in full command of their senses.

I am tempted by the notion of "not thinking" at that tender moment of waking up. So I will try Steve's approach tomorrow and see if by acting like a robot, I could turn my success of waking at 5 into a habit, and thereby reap the benefits that Aristotle referred to. After all, I am there, wherever I go. It is up to me to do, with or without my mind. The latter might work better.

Photograph: Morning in Ubud.