I'm enjoying the book REAL but I have hit a block with the chapter on custody. Can you say more about it please?

Chapter 8 REAL
You are not in control

Trying to assume personal control

—over anything—

is simply not possible. 

What a relief.

Garret Kramer 

Imagine that you are driving and you bump another car. The other driver gets out of the car in full rage. You have no control over what this driver will do. She could do anything.

You also have no control over the thoughts that appear in your mind at that moment:

‘How dare she swear at me!’ or

‘I need to get away from her.’ or

‘She looks upset, poor thing.’

Whichever thoughts seem real to you in that moment will give rise to your behaviour:

You might swear back.

You might walk away.

You might ask if she is OK.

You are not in control of the other driver. 

You are not in control of your thoughts about her. 

You are not in control of the behaviour that results from the thoughts.

You are not in control of any of it. 

Does this mean you are an automaton?

Are you just an oblivious receiver and transmitter of whatever is believed?

Yes… 

In a way…

The body-mind is the expression of whatever is being believed in that moment. In a very real sense, it is a programmed robot. Executing whatever programme is installed. 

Where things get confusing is that we believe that we are an individual self, housed within the body-mind, controlling all its actions. 

But there was no self controlling how language or driving or listening was learned. That just happened. 

And the self that we really are, is the awareness of that. Who we really are is the space in which all of life is appearing. 

The consciousness we are brings thought alive as though it were real.  It also allows the realisation that thoughts are ever-changing, transient, neutral mental energy.

Inherent in this gift is 100% custody for what you believe in any moment. And 100% custody for what you do as a consequence of that belief, even though what you believe is out of your control.

Crazy isn’t it? 

Even though you have no control over the road woman, for the moment that she is in your life, she is in your care. Every single thing about her is perceived through your mind in that moment. She can’t exist for you other than through your experience of her. 

It is the same for all thoughts. You have no control over when and how and what will appear. Once these thoughts appear in your head, though, they are in your custody. 

You have no choice about the behaviours that come from those thoughts. The behaviours though are in your custody. Only yours.

So there we have it: 100% custody of anything that appears within our awareness, 0% control.