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The Awakened Mind: An Interview with Tom ThompsonWe've all heard the terms "awakened mind" and "awakening" discussed in various traditions. But what do they really mean? I am grateful to be able to share with you an interview discussion I had with Tom Thompson where we explored the meaning of awakening.Tom is a teacher of conscious living and he works with people around the world. Since the age of sixteen, Tom has been a student of psychology, Buddhism, the yogic pathways, and the enlightenment traditions. After many years of profound spiritual experiences, a deep awakening occurred that led to the falling way of identification with belief systems, concepts, and the experience of a separate, unique, individual self. As he says on his website, "Now there is simply presence-awareness, this as it is, and as it appears to happen." Tom's teachings point to the reality of our awakening and living as the truth of our being - now. Currently, Tom and his wife Bonnie run the Awakened Heart Center for Conscious Living, in Southern Pines, NC.  The Awakened Heart Center (TAHC), provides a spiritual community and programs in spiritual awakening and conscious living. These include satsang, meditation, yoga and related programs, plus private consultations with Tom and personal coaching sessions with Bonnie. I want to express deep gratitude to Tom and Bonnie for the wonderful way their programs have helped so many. And, thank you to Tom for taking the time to speak with me and allowing me to share this interview here. I hope you enjoy it. Cheers, Adam PS - A quick note about the interview:
INTERVIEW WITH TOM THOMPSON ON THE AWAKENED MIND Q: What is an awakened mind? Tom: An awakened mind doesn't exist, because what you're waking up from is the mind. Awareness is awakening from identifying with mind. For most people, mind is thought. Without thought, there's no mind. Thoughts create concepts, ideas, beliefs, reality tunnels, and so on, and we mistake those for reality. We mistake those for who and what we are. We say, "I'm a Christian, I'm a democrat, I'm an American, and so on." And these are things that actually confine and limit us and they become the lenses we look at life through. So waking up is actually waking up from the mind into the freedom of awake awareness. The mind can be seen for what it is and it's used after awakening, but there's no longer any sense of self found in the mind. Q: So it's beyond the mind? Tom: It's prior to the mind. This awareness is always present, and the mind arises within it. And then it disappears. For instance, a six-month old child is very intelligent and aware, but she's not having a lot of thoughts right now. If could you interview her, you'd see she doesn't know anything about herself, she doesn't have any conditioning. Yet, you can't say she's not intelligent and you can't say she's not aware. So, awareness is there, and intelligence is there, but there's no programming. But, over time, she'll learn her name, she'll learn she's a woman, she's a "this," she's a "that." And as she identifies with those things, that's where our anxiety starts coming from. That's where problems of the human dilemma come from - false identification with the mind and its beliefs and positions in life. Q: Where does the term awakened mind really come from? Tom: From you! (Laughing). I think the term Awakening is good because I think we've all had the experience of of waking up from a very believable dream and actually have experienced a lot of joy if we're dreaming about somebody we love or some wonderful situation, or we might be terrified in the dream. Whatever's going on in the context of the dream seems very real, and we respond to it. When we awaken from the dream, we see the non-reality of it. And if we're relatively sane we don't put a lot of identity back into the dream and say, for example, "Oh my God, I still owe that guy in the dream $5. Where am I going to find him?" (Laughing.) You wouldn't try to pay somebody back in a dream. So, we've all had that experience of awakening. When we awaken from the mind it's very much like that. It's quite startling, overwhelming, and amazing how conditioned and how entranced we've become. When that suddenly falls away it's not only a profound release and freedom but it's also quite amazing to see how deeply hypnotized we've been into a non-reality. And, you also see how almost all of our human problems are caused by these trances which are not based on any form of reality. Our beliefs have become more important to us than what actually is. They have become more important than other beings and so we kill to protect our cherished beliefs. That is insanity. Q: So, how does one awaken? Tom: Well, the "you" you think you are doesn't awaken. "Awakening" awakens out of that. But, how does that happen? Basically, there has to be a deep questioning - a willingness to investigate everything. And the foundation of that investigation is to tell yourself the truth about what you really know. And, if you are willing to tell yourself the truth about what you really know, you'll discover very quickly you really don't know much. You've been living out of a set of assumptions that are never questioned and never put on the table. You have to have the willingness to put those fundamental assumptions on the table and really question them honestly. There are all sorts of things we don't really know. But we think we know them. And when we start questioning even the simplest most basic things, there has to be a tolerance for that. As a simple example, some people believe in ghosts and some people don't believe in ghosts. But, if you have a discussion about ghosts, what you'll find is that there's a group of people who believe in ghosts and a group of people who say, "That's ridiculous; ghosts don't exist." But maybe most honest is to say, "I don't know whether ghosts exist or not." But to exist in that truth requires a tremendous tolerance for insecurity, which our minds don't like. Our minds are survival mechanisms that want to grasp and say, "I know ghosts exist" or "I know ghosts don't exist." That gives the mind a sense of security and power. So the mind itself has little tolerance itself for the insecurity of staying in the question. And, that's why most people will grasp a belief or an idea instead of saying, "I really don't know." Q: You mentioned deep questioning as the way to awakening. What about the practices in the wisdom traditions - meditation, yoga, chanting, breathing techniques? Do those really lead to awakening? Tom: With the exception of meditation (which I'll come back to in a minute), I think all of those are useful for pragmatic functioning in the relative world. And, in some ways if they're not understood correctly they can reinforce the problem instead of freeing us up from it. But if understood correctly, breathwork as an example is very good for the human instrument - for the internal channels, for the chakras, for enabling the human instrument to live at it's fullest capacity. Chanting creates positive energetic vibrations that can clear the physical instrument and also clear the environment. But true meditation is not doing anything. It's not investing in mind. It's not investing in an outcome. And so true meditation is really taking the hands off the steering wheel and allowing everything to be as it is. And because we're not manipulating or trying to take a position in meditation, meditation is a door that can open to awakening. It's like lucid dreaming. You're no longer participating in the dream. You're allowing it to unfold and you're watching it. And in that there can be a turning around and seeing where dream's coming from. It is arising within Consciousness itself. All the other practices are within the dream and they enhance the quality of it. And that's okay. If you're going to have a dream, have a great dream. Don't have a nightmare. (Laughing.) But there's also the chance that if people believe these many practices have something to do with awakening, they're really enhancing the dream. Which is fine. But, they're not necessarily going to awaken you out of it. Q: How do you know if you have an awakened mind or if you have awakened? Tom: What's interesting about that is that the secondary involvement with self has stopped. So, a lot of people can be awakened and since they're no longer "checking up" on themselves all the time, they may not know. Teachers can let you be awakened for quite some time without bothering to tell you because they want to see how it unfolds. But the secondary self-involvement tends to fall away. Q: . . .and when you say "secondary self-involvement," what do you mean? Tom: Checking up on "How am I doing?" Asking, "Am I awake yet?" So the question, "Am I awake yet?" wouldn't be there, because there's no self-involvement in that way any more. It's all collapsing. There's no referencing the thought-based idea of a self anymore. In true awakening, the process of secondary self-involvement falls away. Wondering, "how am I doing?" falls away. And so people can walk around awakened, and a teacher will say something to them eventually. So there's a wonderful simplicity to it. And that's why somebody who's awake doesn't go around calling themselves "awake." They don't go around calling themselves the "grandmaster" or the "guru" and so on, because there's no longer a concern with status, there's no longer a concern with looking good, there's no longer a concern with elevation or competition. There's no saying, "I'm the first one in my sangha to become enlightened," and so on. Q: If I may, what was it like for you to awaken? Tom: (Laughing). Well, using those terms. . .what happened was that I was studying in a tradition working with kundalini. When the kundalini's awake there's a lot of phenomenal experiences, on many levels. But, they're incorporate into the personal story. For example, thinking, "I was in samadhi last night and I saw God, and on and on and on. . ." And, there was a fascination with experiences and developing capacities and abilities. When so-called "awakening" happened, there suddenly was no interest in any of that anymore. Identity was no longer sought in ability, experience or knowledge. There was no longer any interest in the teachings I'd invested my life in. And, if I thought about it at that time, that could have been very confusing. And then, I was teaching in that tradition, and suddenly the way I was teaching was very different and even started contradicting the formal teachings of the kundalini tradition. For instance, people would come and say, "What are the best techniques for awakening? What should I do?" And I started noticing I was saying, "There's nothing you have to do before awakening happens." Then there started to become division among students. Because here's this whole system based on all the things you have to do to awaken, and there was this official guru from India with all the bells and whistles saying, "You might have to spend lifetimes doing these practices in order to have awakening." And I was saying, "You are already awake. There's nothing you have to do." And so it created a lot of confusion. And also because there was no teaching prior to that I had trouble expressing what I was trying to say. The other teaching was well delineated, but what I was seeing so clearly was different. For example, right now I'm looking at you. I don't see somebody there who needs to be fixed, evolved, or enlightened. You as you are there are as much an expression of "what is" as the Buddha or Christ. And you don't have to do anything to make that so. And so there was this problem because not only was I teaching differently, I also realized there was nothing to teach. (Laughing.) And then people were concerned. People thought I was depressed. People thought I was angry. People thought I was competing with the guru. When it really got down to it I just left. I just wasn't interested in any of it. And that was a very strange thing, because what I invested my entire life in just disappeared. Everything just fell away, including me. (Laughing). I mean the image, the self image. Q: So, what's it like being you now? Tom: It's just what's happening. Here we are. We're talking. I'm happy to be with you. Q: Do you think a lot about the past and the future? Tom: The past and the future come up. I don't really think about them. But, when you say "past," I do immediately think of raising my daughter and spending time with her. That's mostly where my mind goes in the past. I love all the gurus I was with. There's no problem there. Stories come up from the past. I don't get any sense of self from it, but I remember it. The future, well, it's like standing on the edge of a cliff with this huge fog in front of me. I have no idea. Q: . . .and don't worry about it I guess. Tom: Well, worrying about it solves what? If you're really present in life, it's obvious what's going on. For example, if you and I were here and a tornado came, you and I would probably have enough sense to go in the basement or go out the door. We don't have to have a map or strategy for it. We just say, "time to move." The point of power in life is always now. And, if we're really here now, we see the next step. Q: If there were one thing for people to remember first and foremost about awakening and an awakened mind, what is it? Tom: All the stuff you believe is not true. (Laughing). And you have to honestly - not believe me - but look at why I'm saying that. You have to look at what's true. Not what you believe is true. But, what's actually true. "How do you know it's true?" That's the question. In Zen, which has some real strengths, they don't say, "Tell me." They say, "Show me." So they don't want to know all of your mental philosophies, your opinions, your whatever. They want concrete pragmatic evidence of what's true. This. Now. This is It! I hope you have enjoyed this interview on awakened mind. Thank you again to Tom for taking the time to speak with me, and for being a wonderful inspiration to so many. If you'd like to learn more about awakening, please visit The Awakened Heart Center site and check out some of times articles and resources. Namaste. Leave Awakened Mind and Return to Spiritual Development Leave Awakened Mind and Return to BPGR Home Related Articles
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