Thought

I have skirted the edges of the conundrum of thinking and have made cursory statements about it on this blog, but I am ready now to take it on full force. The tricky thing about thinking is that it is the tool that brought me as far as I have come. Thinking was the force that shoved my nose in my own shit and made me realize the pervasive nature of fear and how I have allowed it to dictate my life. Thinking showed me all of the lies that I was unwilling to face until I got honest and really thought about things. Thinking is what showed me how I was wrapped up in the illusion of other people's perception and made me realize that I really don't care about what other people think and how it's really none of my business anyway.

But now that I have come to the point where I now realize that thinking is also a large cloud that fogs up the mind. Thinking takes you only so far. It's like the saying about using a ladder to climb to heaven. The ladder was crucial for making the journey, but what is the benefit of carrying that ladder around after you have climbed it? The same goes for thought. Thought is a tool that is valuable beyond measure, but it is also a tool that is wielded by the ego and used to continue the illusory perception of identity and separation.

It took me awhile to see this, although there have been signs pointing me in this direction all along. But it takes clear seeing. Kind of like advice. Does anyone really ever take anybody else's advice? It takes you having to see things for yourself before it sinks in and makes a difference. At least that is how it has always worked for me. People could tell me things until they were blue in the face, but until I saw it for myself, it never made much difference. The same goes for this blog. It doesn't make any sense to someone unless they have experienced it, so the reading of it by another really isn't of much value. But it is helpful in the fact that it shows you that something else exists. I would have never done any of this had I not realized there might be something else out there.

So things have gone relatively slowly for me (hence the lack of postings) and it took me a bit to understand what was happening. But what has been happening is the dawning of the fact that I need to let thought go. It serves little purpose and only causes me to cut things up and label things as good or bad or boring, etc. etc. What I am done with is the whole business of judging anything. I am weary of it and need it gone. Thought isn't going to do anything for me at this point and it's time to sweep it away. It's a tough realization considering that I have always considered myself a thinker and have reaped the benefits of thought for quite awhile. But now here I am, a place where experience and happening and recognizing my own lack of free will. Thought is now a tool that presents the illusion of free will and that can only cause frustration.

For many people and certainly for me at times, thought is hell. It is the borderland that separates us from our own nature. It walls out life and cuts up experience into pieces that are then held up and judged by a force that has no real power to judge. The act of judging anything has always the same purpose: to keep separate. To claim that there is a "me" and there is an "out there" out there, which is the only source of pain and suffering that exists.

So how is thought going to go? It probably won't quietly step out of the picture. It will linger off and on, but through the desire to release it, it will go. What will replace it is what has always been there. The energy of life that guides everything. Thinking about it doesn't stop it or reverse that force anyway, so why bother?