“To know yourself as the being behind the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.” — Eckhart Tolle

In my work as a meditation teacher and spiritual coach, I often talk to people seeking relief from painful patterns such as compulsive thinking, anxiety, fear or self-criticism.

And there’s one thing that pretty much everyone who comes to me for help has in common.

They’ve been trying, usually for years, to free themselves from mind-created suffering through the path of self-improvement — through trying to fix or change the content of their minds—hoping that one day, a calmer, more peaceful version of themselves will emerge.

And it makes total sense. If you believe the mind is broken, trying to fix it is the logical thing to do. But this approach seldom works , for the following reasons.

You can’t think yourself out of a prison that’s made of thoughts. (thinking itself is the issue).
Restlessness and agitation are the nature of the mind — why the Buddha referred to it as monkey mind.
We have little or no control over the self-arising thoughts that appear in our heads.

As the Indian teacher, Nisargadatta says:

“There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind.”

Lasting peace can never be found on the level of the the mind itself.

If your peace is dependent on the mind being a certain way, you’ll inevitably be disappointed again and again.

I say lasting peace because, while it is certainly possible to experience relative peace for a period of time, all feelings are transient by nature and don’t last. They come and go.

At some point, the feeling of peace will inevitably disappear and you’ll experience the opposite — restlessness and agitation.

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The Two Types of Peace

Fortunately, there’s another solution.

After years of working on myself — trying to produce a calmer, more peaceful version of my mind – I stumbled upon a far simpler, far more effective and best of all, immediate solution.

I discovered that there is another type of peace, a peace that is constant, unchanging, ever-present and best of all, that has little or nothing to do with what’s going on in the mind.

I’m talking about the peace that Eckhart Tolle is alluding to in the quote at the top of this article:

“To know yourself as the being behind the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”

When you get to know yourself as ‘the being behind the thinker’, you discover that there is a peace within you that is not only constant, unchanging and ever-present but has little to do with what’s happening in the mind.

The ocean provides a good analogy.

On the surface, the ocean is always turbulent, always in motion —at times relatively peaceful and quiet, but never completely still.

Drop a few metres below the surface, however, and you discover another world. In the depths, the ocean is still, silent, peaceful and unchanging.

In order to access the stillness in the depths of the ocean, you don’t have to ‘fix’ the surface. The two have nothing to do with each other. In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all with the surface. You just have to shift the focus of your attention.

And it’s exactly the same with the mind.

Behind the thinker — beneath the mental noise — there is an ocean of peace, calm and stillness in the depths of your being.

Unlike the feeling of peace which is temporary and comes and goes, the peace within is ever-present and unchanging. It is the ground of your being, who you essentially are. Through getting to know yourself as peace (as opposed to the mind) , all of your issues are resolved.

And the great irony is that EVERYONE, even the most restless and agitated person in the world, is intimately familiar with this inner space (it is who you are after all).

But, looking for solutions on the surface, most people continually overlook the peace that is ever-present within.

Get to Know Yourself

So it’s clear from all of the above that getting to know yourself behind the thinker is the key to peace, joy and inner freedom – the key to everything.

So, how to go about it?

Over the past 20 years or so, I’ve developed a 3- pronged approach which I believe is the quickest way for anyone to make the shift from inner turmoil to inner peace—from identifying with the surface movements of the mind to recognising the deep peace within.

Here are the 3 steps:

Getting to know the mind better
Getting to know yourself better
Loving Kindness and Self- Compassion

1. Know the Mind

Abraham Lincoln once famously said:

“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”

And the same is true of the mind.

When you get to know it better, you come to see that it doesn’t have nearly as much power over you as you may have thought.

In many ways, the path of working on yourself, of trying to fix the mind, serves to further strengthen its grip on you. What you resist persists. The underlying premise of all self-development is the belief there is something wrong — something that needs to be fixed in order for you to be OK.

And as long as we believe there’s something wrong with the mind, no amount of self-development will ever be enough. There will always be something else to fix.

Far better to leave the mind alone to do its thing and not get involved.

So what is there to know about the mind?

Here are a few things:

The mind is restless and agitated by nature. Don’t expect it to be quiet and peaceful (this one alone is a game-changer for many people).
You’ll never experience ongoing peace of mind. It’s not possible.
Thoughts and feelings are not inherently good, bad, right or wrong. It’s your labelling that makes them so.
You don’t need to resolve your fear, anxiety, unworthiness etc. before you can experience peace. You can experience it right now, just as you are.
Engaging with the mind is not mandatory. You can choose not to get involved.
The mind only has as much power as you give it.
And here’s the big one! You’re not your thoughts. The mind is not YOU.

I have developed two powerful frameworks to help people break free from the prison of mind identification – the 7 Steps to Inner Freedom and the 7 False Beliefs that Will Keep You Trapped in Your Head Forever.

Both are featured in my book ” Help! I Can’t Stop Thinking”, available as a .pdf or as a bundle (.pdf, audiobook and 9 supplementary guided meditations).

Get to Know Yourself Better

Or more accurately, get to know your Self better.

This was the massive game-changer for me when, as a novice monk back in 2004, I had a life-changing realisation.

After years of trying to fix my restless monkey mind — trying to iron the surface of the ocean — I realised I didn’t need to.

I realised that:

the peace I was seeking could never be found as a feeling because all feelings are transient. They come and go.
within me — behind the mind, as Eckhart Tolle puts it — was a vast field of Still, Silent awareness that is ever-present, unchanging and most importantly, has nothing to do with what’s going on in the mind.

As the Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron puts it:

“You are the sky. Everything else is weather.”

As long as we are identified with the mind, peace will come and go with the thought clouds that pass across the sky. Sometimes there are light clouds, sometimes dark clouds.

The secret to continuous and unbroken peace is to recognise that, no matter what is going on in the mind, the sky remains unchanged and unaffected.

The Still, Silent space within you remains constant and at peace no matter what is going on in your head. Realising this is the key to unbroken peace.

And how to make this your direct experience?

Through meditation and through practice But not just any old meditation. It needs to be specific and focused.

Helping people discover this space is my passion so get in touch if you’d like help.

Want to work closely with me in a small group setting to switch off a noisy mind and achieve peace, calm and inner freedom. Follow our comprehensive step-by-step roadmap to inner peace with Weekly Live Calls and a dedicated community. Start today for only $27.

And now to the 3rd Step.

Loving Kindness and Compassion

Patterns such as anxiety, worry, fear or unworthiness are almost always accompanied by a tendency to be overly self-critical.

And that’s why it’s important, as you go through the previous two steps — getting to know the mind and getting to know yourself — to do so with an attitude of curiosity, playfulness, gentleness and loving kindness — to be sincere but not serious.

When we embark on the journey of self-discovery for the first time, we are like spiritual toddlers learning to walk. And it’s inevitable that we fall a lot in the beginning. And that’s why it’s so important to practice loving kindness and compassion.

But the great news is that you are given endless chances to get up, hit the reset button and keep moving forward.

You can’t miss your true nature. It’s pretty BIG!!

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