Saturday, March 15, 2008

Our thoughts are not ours. They just appear from out of nowhere. One never asks to have them.
It’s the same thing with emotions, they are just there and there is no way to stop them. One doesn’t choose to be angry or sad. One doesn’t choose to feel desperate.

One doesn’t choose to believe what one believes. One doesn’t choose to be a Catholic , a Protestant or a Sunni Muslim. One simply finds oneself as one. One doesn't choose ones family.Our free will is hugely exaggerated.

I have strong beliefs that I certainly don’t like. For example, when Eckhart writes “…that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die” my first thought is, “yes of course, we will die because we will not evolve." Not a chance. The same thing happens with my second thought. We have always been like this, nasty, competitive and violent, like chimpanzees. If one or two people here and there are able to transcend their own conditioning that’s fine with me, but the vast majority will never ever evolve. We’re stuck here in the mud. This belief is as strong as my belief that the earth is revolving around the sun.

I don’t want this thought. I don’t like it. So how do I get rid of it? Should I simply tell myself to believe that everything will be all right? Should I try to stop thinking? OK! I need to raise my level of awareness, but how do I do it? Where should I begin? Is it like pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?

This is what I have found: For the first, one must be able to question one's own thoughts, one's own beliefs, and one's own opinions. One must always question oneself. Without this questioning no awakening at all is possible.

It is very painful to question oneself. Sometimes it is extremely painful. And nothing is really gained from it. No one will be impressed by it and no one will pay for it. So what is the point with it? There is no point, I guess, but it is the first step in the awakening process.

The second step is to realize that thoughts are nothing but thoughts. Beliefs are nothing but beliefs. To be afraid of one's own thoughts is like being afraid of ghosts.

Thoughts are made of the stuff as dreams are made on.