The nature of thoughts

Sitting peacefully reading my book and BAM!, a thought drops in.

“Peter has not got back to you yet”, it says to me. I feel a bit of annoyance, like when a small cloud moves in front of the sun just as your body is about to heat up after getting out of the swimming pool.

“I always have to chase after him to do what I asked for”, another thought follows on its heel. My mood is getting considerably darker.

“Nobody respects or takes me seriously and, blah blah blah…”, down the rabbit hole I go with more negative thoughts accumulating like clouds during a late summer thunderstorm.

My earlier peaceful mood, now something of the past.I cannot concentrate on my book nor enjoy it anymore. Bloody Peter!

Our natural state of mind, when not bothered by nagging thoughts, is truly peaceful, joyful, filled with love and contentment. For many of us we have forgotten what this feels like being caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life, motivated by the driven culture we find ourselves in.

We mistakenly believe that we ARE our thoughts.

Indeed, that WE are the creator of thoughts. But true thought, in its state of origin, is always new, fresh and has an “a-ha” feel to it, and totally NEUTRAL. It is said that we experience 89% of our daily thoughts on replay. Meaning we have thought about them before.

Everytime we give them a little longer airtime in our minds, that is when thinking takes place.We give meaning to our thoughts during this process. Not based on the ultimate truth of reality, but from our unique and limited perspective.

The more we dwell on the thinking process, similar thoughts will come in accordance with the topic or current emotional state that we are in. Working like a magnet. We often say, “I just can't shake this feeling”, better yet, “I just can't shake this thinking!”

The good news is that thoughts are very similar in nature to that of clouds. When left alone, they WILL move on. When given momentum (attention and meaning), they will attract more thoughts equal to their quality (sad, anger, mad, happy, etc). Problems create more problems ;)

Getting clear on this understanding in the example below:

“Peter has not got back to you yet”, it says to me.

Can you see from the sentence above that it appears that there are THREE people involved in this statement?

The “I” that experiences this can be seen similar to the Sun behind the clouds (clouds being thoughts coming and going) but soon the sun will dissipate them and always shine bright with its clarity.

If you are still with me, I invite you to go a bit deeper and look even past the “I” (because even the idea of Wanda the character has been made up by a mind of incessant thinking) and open to the possibility that there is the BACKDROP that is impersonal where all things plays out, impersonal - it just IS: the Sun, the sky and the clouds.

It is the ultimate journey and discovery to experience this, and it lies on the other side of thoughts and thinking.For this we need to really slow down our mind - a huge challenge for the modern human being.

I have created a short 8-minute FREE introduction meditation that could introduce you to a calmer mind. Using thoughts and feelings in a positive way to open the door a bit...