The Mind's Illusion of Control

Dear Reader, feel free to take some time to reflect on the image at the bottom of the page and then follow on.

One’s mind has great power to take control, but you are not your mind. The mind creates an illusion to feel safe and comforted. Having a name, style, thoughts, and opinions makes one believe these are their identity. By clinging to the past and craving the future, the mind can take control of one’s life, preventing them from living in the present moment—a place where true bliss exists. Maintaining one’s identity requires constant thought and practice, a routine that brings the mind pleasure but traps one’s consciousness.

To truly understand your mind, you must see beyond the neatly kept garden it has constructed. Recognise that the identity you carefully maintain is just an illusion of control, distracting you—the neatly cut grass within the fences—from the vast, untamed freedom of your true self: nature.

The moment you stop identifying with the mind’s constructs, you open the gate to the wilderness of the present moment, where life flows effortlessly, free from the constraints of past and future. Here, in the boundless expanse beyond the garden, lies the essence of true bliss, unshackled by the mind’s need for maintenance. The grass isn’t free; it needs to be protected, fertilised, and cut. Beyond the fences, trees, mountains, and rivers exist without need for maintenance. Nature is free.

Why take pride in this grass anyway? Nature is much more beautiful. All we need to do is see beyond these fences.