Let’s say you have a burning question, such as, “What should I do with my life?” That’s a big one. And usually, we have a lot riding on the answer. There are things we would really like to do and some things we wouldn’t do unless we had no other choice. So it’s safe to say that we’re anything but unattached to the answer.
This is a problem.
If our objective is to find out what the best path forward is, two blocks can immediately arise. One is triggered by the word “best.” How do we know, really, what is best for us. We’re not exactly in a position to know that. We’re more than likely to have filters in place we don’t even know exist. They will bias our preferences towards certain answers and away from others.
Ironically, the more we want the right answer, the less likely it will come. This is why in the East, they say you first have to kill off desire before you can meditate. It’s not that desire is bad, it just gets in the way.
This is where non-attachment comes in. You simply cannot be attached to the answers or ideas that will stream into your awareness in response to the mental vacuum you’ve created by asking an important question. You have to kick your mind into neutral and let it coast. As much as you can, be receptive to whatever comes in. Just take note, even writing it down if you have to, and stay present to the flow.
Sometimes, word association games can help you access your subconscious mind. It doesn’t matter, really, which words you start with. They can rhyme, which really gets the ball rolling—tree, bee, sea, we, tea—anything to start the subconscious connecting dots. Patterns will emerge, and they will start to take on symbolic content, symbols that mean something to you, not necessarily to anyone else.
An example of this might be a certain kind of tree, such as a pine tree. Trees have archetypal meanings, but those aren’t what you’re interested in, unless you’re doing research on that. Instead, you want to ask, “What do pine trees mean to me?” Perhaps it’s Christmas, maybe a cabin you used to vacation at with your family when you were a kid. Maybe it’s a tree that fell across the road to the cabin, an incident that for some strange reason keeps coming back to you, even though it happened decades ago. That tree has symbolic meaning—for you.
– Michael Maciel
MysticalChrist.org