Where to Find Answers When the Mind Has None

Thank you, Rupert. My name is Kelly and I'm from the US. I have a question and it's about something I've observed in starting to this practice of non-duality which is rather new to me. I I think what I see is my mind will come up with questions that feel very important and I genuinely believe these questions are important. It's about, you know, where I imagine living in the world. It's about love and partnership. And I would love answers. And so I try to figure out how can how can I get an answer? And um through this practice it it seems as though going to our true essence that some clarity might exist in that space when we sort of stop listening to the mind or you know stop listening to the ego that is worried or fear-based or something like this. But I find what happens is when I get into this state of being aware of being aware, the questions completely go away and and I feel at peace and I haven't really received the clarity that my mind would like to have. >> Yes. And so I'm not sure what to do with that because the these questions I think are created from the mind but they do feel very important. >> Yeah. >> You know love partnership. So if you could speak to that. >> You're absolutely right that they're important life-changing questions and they should be considered >> carefully. So you have your situation in life uh where you live, the work you do, who you live with and so on. You have your mind's um response to those situations and and the mind's questions and then you have your true nature of awareness that lies in the background. You're absolutely right. Awareness itself that has in the absence of the mind, the absence of thinking and perceiving, awareness has no questions. It's it's it's never concerned about what to do or where to live. That those are all questions that the mind has about the body in the world. But awareness by itself doesn't have any questions. So what's important is that so the mind has the questions and the answers have to come in the mind. >> Am I going to live in San Francisco or New York? That's a question the mind has and the answer is going to come in the mind. But the the real question I think this is the question you're asking is is where is the mind going to get its answers from? How does the mind make the right decision about where to live, what to do, who to live with and so on. Now normally the mind is dominated by the ego or the sense of being a separate self. And the separate self is um insecure and needy and and so the mind um it it needs approval, it needs validation, it's um it's fearful, it tends to be anxious and and so on. So if you make a decision from that place from insecurity, fear, anxiety, uh duty, guilt and and so on then those qualities are going to the qualities of fear, anxiety, they are going to they're going to be implicit in the decision you make and and they will color the decision you make. And so even if you end up living in a certain place, doing a certain job, living with a certain person, implicit in your life circumstances will be the qualities of fear and guilt and duty that from which you made the decision in the first place. So it's it's important when you have a particularly when you have a big life decision like this to go back to to pose the question in your mind but to to go back all the way back to your true nature and to allow the qualities that are inherent in your true nature to inform your mind. So the qualities that are inherent in your true nature are are peace and sufficiency. There's no there's no feeling of lack there. Awareness doesn't need approval. There's no anxiety there. There's no fear about the future there. There's no and so on. So if you're if the m the mind instead of referring to its own its own anxiety and fear the mind needs to go back and take its um to be informed by awareness to go all the way back to awareness and to try to allow the qualities that are inherent in awareness, the qualities that are inherent in your deepest self to allow those qualities to inform the decisions that your mind makes. Your mind still makes the decision. Awareness by itself can't make any decisions. It can't think or talk or so. The mind still makes the decision. But does it make a decision on behalf of the ego or does it make a decision on behalf of the self who you truly are? >> Thank you. And what happens just one more thing to say about that, Kelly, that you I don't mean it as literally as you go back to awareness and you ask awareness what what what would you say it's not like this what the way it tends to happen is that you spend time and you spend a week in a place like this and you spend time on your own going back to your to your true nature and slowly you begin to feel that because here we're always going back to our true nature. We're kind of living in that, immersing in that. You begin to find just automatically by being here that your mind is more and more informed by the qualities that are inherent in awareness. So it can happen kind of indirectly. You don't go back to awareness and say what do you awareness think it it slowly the this clar you may well find that a kind of clarity that comes from deeper than your mind begins to percolate into your mind and you begin to feel I know what's the right thing to do you get quiet enough you stand far enough back from your anxiety and your fear and your sense of duty and you go back to something deeper in yourself and that begins to shine through in a kind of knowing about the right thing to do. Thank you. I think I understand.