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Creating Peace In The Mind THE BEGINNING OF THOUGHTS If I were to give the usual advice,“Do not allow this type of thinking to buildup, just nip it in its bud”, it would be easier said than done because there is no bud. The thinking first appears as a flower. By the time I become aware of it, it has become a huge jungle. It is not something that buds and can be nipped immediately. The very beginning of such thinking is an association of “I”. Without that, the thoughts would not begin. This mechnical thinking, associated as it is with "I" has no history, really. We may say it comes from childhood, that we picked it up from their parents, and so on. If that is the case, this kind of thinking has no actual begining; it has not created at a given time. Because of its association with “I”, there is no question of my being aware of the first thought because I am taken over at the outset by the thinking itself. I become the very thought and the thought becomes me. Therefore, the advice, “nip it in its bud”, is meaningless and can only create complex such as, “I cannot nip it in its bud. I don't know how.” Such thinking just adds to my buildup of guilt. What, then, can I do? NIPPING THOUGHT IN ITS BUD By doing japa, you learn how to nip a thought in its bud. Just as when you see poison ivy, you do let it grow, so too, by being aware of the interval between thoughts, you gain the capacity to nip a thought in its bud. In “BMW thinking,” you jump from one thought to another. You hold onto the second thought and leave the first. And you hold onto the third and leave the second. The lingering Contents of the first thought connects you to the next thought. This connection causes you to catch the second thought and leave the first. Thus, we go from BMW to Germany. Germany takes you to World War II. World War II takes you to pearl Harbour. Pearl Harbour takes you to Hawaii. Hawaii takes you to beach. The beach takes you to melanoma and you become sad. This how the mind works. If you catch one thought, it means the previous one is gone because the two thoughts have nothing to do with each other. This is why we so often lose track of where we brgan in a conversion. MONKEY THINKING The reason we cannot keep track of where we began in a conversion is that we do not hold the wheel; conversion just takes place. We must start talking about foriegn policy and end up discussing sweepstakes. In between, many other topics come up. There is no control and we do not know how it all happened. The flimsier the connections, the more difficult it is to relate one thought to another. I call this kind type of thinking “monkey thinking”, the mind being very much like a monkey who leaps from tree to tree. One tree may be an evergreen and the next a maple tree. The monkey just goes from one to the other. Similarily, one's mind jumps from thought to thought and there is no control over the ways of one's thinking. In this kind of chain thinking, one cannot arrive at the gap, the interval, that exists between thoughts. |
“In this kind of chain thinking, one cannot arrive at the gap, the interval, that exists between thoughts.” |
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