Enlightened Car Rental – guaranteed to CRASH your EGO in just one day

Infinite Bliss Podcast – Episode 8

Driving is probably one of the best ways to observe your mind in action. With my new, “Enlightened Car Rental” service, you can experience a roller coaster mind fudge that will leave you in no doubt that your mind is never talking to you.

When you can start to drop those inner thoughts, you’ll start to experience deep inner-peace and infinite bliss.

When you’re driving, you’ll notice your mind chattering away complaining about the other drivers around you. But this wonderful thought experiment will reveal the true nature of your mind as the “Enlightened Car Rental” process really messes with your mind.

It will both crush and crash your ego. Get ready for the reboot.

Thanks for listening my friends.

Mat Robinson ~ The Gregarious Hermit

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Transcript

Hi everybody, welcome, and thank you for joining me.

I think driving, especially here in NJ, gives us the perfect opportunity to observe our mind in action. I personally don’t think our minds are ever talking to us. They’re always talking to the people around us, both real and imaginary, and I think I have a clever way to prove that to you. This idea will also demonstrate to you just how fragile your ego is and how it’s always looking for your advantage. What makes you superior.

And the way that I want to do that is by starting a car rental service. Mark Cuban, if you’re listening, give me a call. So Mark and I are going to start a car rental service called, “Enlightened Car Rental – guaranteed to crash your ego in one day”.

I would have called it, “ZEN Car Rental”, but apparently somebody already beat me to it.

The sole purpose of “Enlightened Car Rental”, will be to highlight and emphasize the point that your mind is always looking for danger. And when it spots a potential problem, it will look for your advantage. All the conversations you have with yourself either attack other people, superiority, or defend and justify your actions, inferiority.

So how does “Enlightened Car Rental” work?

When you show up at the reception desk, you will be given the keys to a high-end luxury car or a super sporty car. Those are the only two options you get. So for example, that could be a top of the line Mercedes, Bentley, Ferrari or Lamborghini. Whatever the car, it’s going to be painted in a way that it really stands out like a sore thumb. Everybody is going to notice it, and it’s definitely going to turn heads wherever you go.

Now, you might be quite nervous at first. Worried that you’re going to scratch it or clip a curb. Your mind will actually be quite silent because you’re hyper focused on getting used to the car. The silent mind is the first thing to notice, but you’ll be too focused on not scratching the car to notice that your mind is silent.

So that’s your first lesson in presence and mindfulness. Being hyper focused on the physical world makes your mind go silent.

Now as you start to get more comfortable. Maybe you’ve driven it for a couple of hours at this point. Some highway driving, some city streets and you’re getting comfortable with the size and the power. You’ll start to relax a little and become more aware of the other cars around you. You’ll become aware that people are staring at you when you pull up to the traffic light in your lime green Rolls Royce.

And that’s when you’ll start to hear your mind talking to you. Depending who’s looking at you, your mind will anticipate what they might be thinking and will prepare a conversation to have with them.

Because this is a luxury car worth a small fortune, you might find your mind feeling superior and criticizing other people that you see as being poor. “Why would you drive that thing?” “I bet you can’t afford a car like this.” “You should work harder then you wouldn’t have to drive that thing.” You might be bragging about the car you’re driving. If you come up alongside someone else driving a similarly high-end car, your ego might say things like, “yeah, but I bet I can go around corners faster than you.”

If you feel like people might be judging you for driving such an extravagant car, maybe you’re embarrassed by the perception of wealth if you live a modest lifestyle, or maybe you’re an environmentalist that normally drives a Prius, you will hear your mind making excuses, “it’s not really my car. I’m just doing a ZEN experiment.” “I don’t normally drive this, my real car is an all electric environmentally friendly car.” “I would never choose a color like this.”

Everyone’s conversations are going to be different. They’re based on your own core values. Your normal day-to-day circumstances, upbringing and beliefs. You’ll see the conversations change depending who you think is judging you.

And because this is an extreme car, your mind will have extreme reactions. But because this is an extreme car, you’ll also be able to witness other people’s egos in action too. You’ll get boy racers in their Honda Civics convinced that they can beat you away from the line. So you’ll see how their minds are challenged and feel the need to prove their superiority and prove they’re better than you.

So that’s quite a lesson. But we’re still not done yet. When you return your car to the rental place, we’ll break for lunch. Have a little group discussion with all the other renters and then do a quick meditation to relax and let the stress go.

Then the fun really begins. You thought a morning of driving some garish luxury car taught you some lessons, just wait. For the afternoon, you get to drive a really shitty car.

And I’m not just talking about a small compact car, I’m talking about a small compact car that’s 20 years old, never been cleaned. Has been rear ended twice. Has a different color drivers door and passenger door. And instead of a cool Firebird painted on the hood like an old trans-am, it has a hand painted unicorn that looks like it was done by a 3 year old. But wait, there’s more. It has no hub caps, the upholstery is full of holes thanks to the family of raccoons that live in the trunk. It smells moldy and it’s full of fast food containers. Plus, as an added bonus, you have to drive with the windows rolled down and the stereo is stuck on a radio station you don’t like. Not to mention, the exhaust is really loud and there’s blue smoke coming out the back.

Pretty much your worst nightmare if I’m being honest. This is the total wrecking ball package. Talk about bringing out your insecurities. Your ego will be crushed. But this gives you the perfect opportunity to notice your mind become defensive. And it will happen almost instantly.

You will shrink down in your seat, trying to avoid people’s stares. Your mind will be making all kinds of excuses to justify why you’re driving this disaster. “This is not my car, it’s just an experiment. My real car is a dot dot dot fill in the blank.” It’s a defensive argument to win a fight. That’s your advantage.

Now even though you’re driving this wreck that is obviously inferior on so many levels, you might still notice your mind finding a slight advantage from time to time. The obvious one would be to proclaim that you’re almost enlightened, and that you don’t care what they think.

If you see someone driving a really nice car, maybe it’s somebody else from the “Enlightened Car Rental” place driving a super luxury car, you might hear your mind say something like, “yeah, but at least I don’t have to worry about someone scratching my car.” Or, “yeah, but I can leave this parked outside a store with the engine running and nobody’s gonna steal it.”

Once again, you found an advantage that makes you superior to the guy driving the obviously better car. Phewwww. That was close. He was almost better than me.

But the real trick to this day of driving fun, is to notice how the conversations change from the morning to the afternoon. From an outside perspective, you’re coming from opposite ends of the spectrum. You’re coming from the perception of extreme wealth to extreme poverty and your mind will really struggle with that.

But also acknowledge that all those conversations you had remained completely within your own head. You never spoke the words out loud. But your mind prepared the conversations ahead of time anyway, just in case one of those people that was judging you just happened to challenge you with a verbal assault. Your clever ego, just going around strategizing defensive arguments like the worlds most frightened lawyer.

You don’t have to listen to the comments, you can just let them float away. And the more you get in the habit of doing that, remaining present, your mind will actually start to limit those conversations because you’re showing it that you just don’t care. Only when you get upset by a comment does your mind go, huh, I guess that was the right call, I should make similar comments in the future to keep my human safe.

So the “Enlightened Car Rental” experience can transform your understanding of your mind in just one day, but I want to share with you a story that was 20 years in the making.

When I first came to the states in my 20s, I drove a cool little VW Golf GTI. Not an extravagant car by any means, but it was a lot of fun, and I really felt like I’d made it. So it definitely made me feel superior. And not that I recognized it at the time, but I would criticize people in nicer cars for not using their turn signals and people in crappier cars for not being as successful. But fast forward a decade or so. Married, two kids, family Honda Accord. The conversations were a bit more mainstream, maybe not so superior. But then when my business started to struggle and I couldn’t afford to upgrade, as my car got older and older, I started to notice my mind would start to brag about how good I was at fixing it and keeping it going. Not dwelling on the fact that I couldn’t afford a new car, but exclaiming how superior I was by saying things like, “yeah, but I bet you couldn’t do an oil change, or replace a wheel bearing in your brand new Corvette.” Once again superior. Then when my boys were old enough to drive, the conversations changed. “It’s not my car, it’s my son’s car. I’m just driving it to give it a run.”

Edit [ What took me 20 years, you will be able to observe within just a few short hours. Over such a long period of time, it’s difficult to notice changes like that, but with the benefit of a spiritual awakening, lessons like that become very clear. The “Enlightened Car Rental” experience short circuits this process. ]

Before we wrap this episode up, I want to give you one more example of when you can observe your mind while you’re driving, and that’s when you pass a police officer on the highway when you’re speeding. See how quickly your mind starts making excuses. “I don’t normally drive this fast.” “Sorry officer, I’m running late for date night.” Or, “Wow, was I really going that fast, I had no idea.” If you’re driving a sports car, your mind will anticipate a conversation about racing and showing off. If you’re driving a beater car, your mind will be anticipating a conversation about roadworthiness. Again, your mind is just looking for anything that will help you win an argument. What makes you superior.

Some of these conversations go on for 10 minutes or so. Long after the threat of a potential police pursuit are over. But there you are. Still talking to yourself with no one else listening. Instead of enjoying being here and now.

Alright, so to wrap up. Hopefully this gives you a useful vehicle, aahhhhh did you see what I did there, a useful vehicle to notice your thoughts and the nature of your thoughts. Hopefully it gives you a window, or shall we say, a windscreen into how completely unnecessary those thoughts are. And hopefully it gives you some traction towards ignoring those thoughts so you don’t get wrapped up in some drama just because the airbags in your mind keep going off just because it looks like a wayward judgment might be about to hit your windscreen.

The, “Enlightened Car Rental” lesson is all about paying attention and noticing the nature of your thoughts. Understanding why your mind is saying what it’s saying and then letting the thoughts just float away without latching on to them. It’s about acknowledging that you’re never talking to yourself.

If you can do that, then you’re one step closer to experiencing deep inner-peace and infinite bliss.

Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

Bye for now.

Mat Robinson ~ The Gregarious Hermit

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