A big synchronicity

It was the first time a synchronicity was so obvious to me that I could no longer deny that something was going on.  It was driving me crazy.  I knew the Christian version of what god was could not possibly be correct, yet something was going on. Something was working behind what we see with our eyes, and it was more powerful than anything seen to be able to do what it did. How can it all be synchronized? I had an experience that opened my mind such that the hinges broke and it couldn’t be closed anymore.

I was laying in bed suffering.  My life sucked. I knew it was my fault, but didn’t know what to do. Figuring out life on one’s own, as we all know, is terribly difficult. I can’t be like everyone else, so everyone else’s advice is no good to me. It’s like, who just knows how to be a parent first time in?  Life is no different.  I was so sick of the lies. All my life I had been lied to. Everything was a lie, but realizing that does not deliver the truth.  Just because I knew it was all bullshit didn’t mean I knew what was up.  It didn’t mean I knew what was actually going on.  

All my life I had spoken to the idea of god in my mind. All my life I had talked to god as if it were some person in the sky just like I was taught. It was an image given to me as a child. I needed to get rid of that image or my life wasn’t going to get better. I was sick of reading Christian books that were just putting icing on mud pie. None of it was actually accomplishing anything. It was like advil. It only helps with the symptoms. It never actually fixes the problem.

During this struggle I was attending multiple churches. I would set up appointments with local preachers and argue and debate with them trying to figure out what was going on. I threw out that bible. The evidence regarding the fact that it was written by evil people is overwhelming, but those evil people were very smart. They always kept just enough of the truth in it to keep followers. Even now I must admit that there is a fair amount of spiritual statements in the bible which are true, but the thing as a whole is quite evil.

I was arguing with preachers about such things. I’d debate it with anyone I could find. It was all I cared about. If knowing god meant peace then that is all I wanted.  I just wanted peace. I needed peace in this mad world. One night I was laying in bed. Praying for all I had. Pouring all my energy into the thoughts; I just want to know the truth I don’t care what the consequence is.  I have been praying this prayer for a long time now, but a decade ago on this night it was answered instantly.

Months prior to this my grandmother had went to a bookstore that was closing.  She loaded up some book she saw that I would like.  There were like ten of them. Diet books, workout books, self help books, and a Christian book. I love books, so I gladly accepted them. My life got busy though, and they were collecting dust on my bookshelf. I always have two or three books going, so new books which I didn’t personally pick go to the back of the line. Her books were way back in line.

That night I was literally crying I wanted to know so bad.  I just wanted to know what to believe.  Which path to take.  Where was I to direct all my energy?  I didn’t want to waste it again on something that turned out to not be true. I didn’t want to invest a single tiny bit of energy into another lie.  I hate it.  I cannot stand living a lie.  

I rolled over on my side, and opened my eyes.  As the tears cleared from eyes I was staring directly at a book titled Discover the Power Within You.  I reached over, pulled the book out, then devoured it. My mind was blown open.

I could only laugh afterwards. How stupid I had been. How ignorant. I was exhilarated for weeks. I had been reading all the wrong stuff because I was listening to the wrong people. That book spoke directly to the fight I was having within myself. Directly in every single way. That book being right there, at that time, changed my life so powerfully it cannot be imagined.  

My grandmother would never have purposefully bought that book for me had she known what it said.  She has always been a Baptist, so to claim that Jesus was not god, but a man in tune with the universe, she would have disregarded it.  She would have none of that kind of talk.  Jesus not a god? If it were back in the day she would probably have watched as I burned at the stake.

What is funny though is that the woman prays for me every day.  It only makes sense then she personally gave me the book that answered my prayers. That book sat patiently on my shelf for months waiting to be seen.  I had disregarded it because I assumed it was just another Baptist mumbo jumbo Christian book. Asking a dead guy to answer prayers doesn’t solve anything. I had already sworn to never read such a book again.

This book though changed me to my core.  It was there on my bookshelf perfectly synchronized into my life. All the small events that had to of occurred in reality to ensure that book was there.  Since then I have done it hundreds of times. Most noticeable to me is when I spend months wrapping my mind around something, figuring things out on my own, and then as soon as I figure it out; bam! the book is in my hands.  It’s quite an experience when it happens once, but when it just keeps on happening it becomes undeniable that something is working behind the scenes.

To be clear.  I choose not to see this working behind the scenes business as god. I would say god created that thing which synchronizes everything.  Synchronicity is not judgmental. It is the thing that we pray to.  When we pray we are synchronizing with the universe, good or bad, it gives what is asked.  It’s how it works.  It’s not some sentient being handing out consequences and rewards.  It’s the very fabric of the universe of which we were born into, in which we have evolved for millions of years.  Why wouldn’t we be born enmeshed in it?

If we are made of stardust, then we are star dust that has evolved into what we have now. That is pretty damn incredible. In this context though, it is suddenly not so incredible that we would be in sync with the fabric of the universe, being that we are made of it.  

This is why the world is so jacked. It answers the good and the bad. If you are laying around suffering putting all your being into negative thoughts, they are going to manifest. It all ties into that prayer business. Maybe it’s better to ask, why was that prayer answered instantly?  Could it be because at that moment I wanted that thing with my total being?  That I had been spending a great deal of energy on it? That there was not one single part of me that did not want that truth? Now think about what would happen if you walked around twenty four seven wanting everything you did with totalness?  

It’s a lot like riding a bike. It’s difficult to do at first in certain ways, but man oh man if you crash it sucks.  And crash you will. If a person hasn’t worked out their darkness, it will be manifested.  It is being manifested.  The difference is that when one becomes more aware of synchronicity it happens more.  So if a person hasn’t been working at learning to think correctly, it can tear lives apart.

The other night I asked a friend to give me one thing, one theme to concentrate on while I prayed for her.  If I am feeling the energy, and the person is right in front of me, I can create synchronicity for others.  Before I could stop her she was saying she just wants to know the truth.  I could feel her pray it as she said it.  I tried to stop her, I warned her.  Doing that most assuredly brings consequences.  To pray for the truth one must be prepared to lose everything.

Why?  Because truth is freedom.  Freedom, truth, require no attachments.  You can’t be free if you need something else to give you a sense of yourself.  You can’t know the truth if you aren’t free to know it. Thinking you need something to be happy for instance.  You can’t know the truth if your internal state is dependent on some material object. The truth doesn’t care about your thoughts.  Why can't you be happy without such and such? Because you are not free. Because you do not know the truth.

So you see, my friend was directly praying with her being for things she doesn’t even know yet. She has so many attachments.  Seeking the truth she has no choice but to suffer. She doesn’t really read books.  You see books greatly reduce the amount of suffering involved in learning the truth because you can learn from the mistakes of others.  When you try to learn all on your own you have no choice but to fall down constantly.  You will fall down even with books. A lot. I cringed when I heard her say it.  I know what it brings. I’ve lived it.  I still live it.  It’s a way of life.   

Her prayers have been being answered by the way. She is discovering things daily which she did not know the day before. They are not necessarily the things she wanted to know. Matter of fact they are counter to it. The things she is learning are directly in the face of "how she wants it to be." Can you see? The truth doesn't care about what she thinks. The truth just is.

Thinking is obviously complicated

Couple of days ago I was watching some YouTube videos regarding the truth; reality. One of the talks was about meditation. My friend has not stopped her thinking yet.  She claims to want to, but like it was for me, it will be a journey for her. Like me she is going to need all the help she can get. Luckily for her I know a thing or two about it. What is fortunate though is that when trying to explain it to her it creates in me a need to say it in such a way just for her, which means a new way of saying something. Maybe this way could help you too.

Thinking is obviously complicated.  It must be for so many to not have their minds wrapped around it.  The issue is, you cannot use your thinking to stop thinking, so naturally if all someone has ever done is think, stopping doing so seems quite absurd.  If you are thinking in your head that you need to stop thinking; you are obviously thinking, and that will never bring about stopping your thinking.  You will just go on the rest of your life thinking about it with no end in sight.  Stopping thinking is a surrender.  It is a giving up.  It cannot be willed, or forced, or intended, and obviously it cannot be brought about by thoughts.  All one can do is pray for the experiences that will bring about the cessation of thought and live life accordingly. Be wary of praying for the truth; if you have attachments pain will ensue.

The truth is, there are countless ways to stop thinking.  There are as many ways as there are people.  Just get lost in something.  Athletes, musicians, artist, all those so engrossed in what they are doing they cease to think. That is a form of meditation.  If you were to delve into your own mind you would find that you have all kinds of different ways of thinking, different kinds of thoughts, so it is with meditation, there are many kinds.

Think of yourself as one who has thoughts, you are not your thoughts.  Maybe think of it as you being a soul that has thoughts.  The soul is aware of much more than the thinking is. So now think of these two specific kinds of thoughts.  The ones you use, and the ones that come to you.  The ones you use means those thoughts which you are directing.  These are thoughts that you would be using when trying to figure out what to do about your spouse or children.  The ones that come to you are the ones you have when you are searching your memory, or when you are trying to figure something out and have exhausted all of your own ideas.  Artists rely on this type of thought to create their works.

It’s not that the thinking cannot be creative, but that that creativity comes from much deeper.  If the thinking is only one percent of total brain activity then how much more powerful are those thoughts which come from the total mind?  

A good baby step towards becoming a meditator is to just stop the willful thoughts.  One can be meditating and still have a stream of thoughts going through the mind; one just stops listening to that stream.  Turn the volume down so to speak.  In your mind separate the gap between the thoughts. Step out of your thoughts.  Step away from them, let them drop away, cease to care about that silly stream of thoughts.

So there is the gap.  Krishnamurti’s way of bridging the gap was to go into it.  The gap between the thoughts.  He sought the gap.  

I prefer to attempt to be aware of everything at once when I wish to completely stop the train of thoughts.  Just by trying to use all my senses simultaneously it is impossible to think.  Sight, sound, touch, taste, feelings, emotions, thoughts, intuitions.  It’s all happening at once, always. There is just too much going on so it leaves no room for thoughts.  

To be clear though, I use all that is available to me. There are times, like at work, where I can’t stand still, and I must focus. This is when I use the athletic meditation; so focused on the task at hand the stream of thoughts are lost, silenced, they just don’t matter when I am cutting potatoes.  They would just be causing me problems. I need those fries to be perfect.

Another way to meditate is when you have problems in life and don’t know what to do.  Just sit quietly somewhere beautiful.  Anywhere beautiful to you.  Focus on it and relax at the same time. Stop your directed thoughts and let thoughts just come to you.  Be aware of the thoughts coming to you, be aware which ones you directed, which ones just come to you.  The ones that just come to you will be like a dream.  Do you always know what your dreams mean?  In the same way you won’t always understand the thoughts the unconscious mind drops through into thinking.

So if your thoughts are constant, which for most people this is true, and you have never really tried to meditate before, just try to become aware of your different kinds of thoughts. By wishing to stop thinking completely right off the bat is like thinking you can run ten miles the very first time you go for a run.  Instead, begin to analyze your thoughts. Begin to decipher the different thoughts you have; Intuitional ones, directed ones, psychic ones, influenced ones; did you know you get thoughts from others?  There are a great many lines of thought going on in the typical person's mind besides the directed ones.  They, like you, simply have not learned to look within yet. Those directed thoughts are more ego than anything.

Stop thinking

I had the kind of dreams that ruin a day this morning.  It leaves me no choice but to communicate something.  As always with me life is about love.  I love jumping right in.

The most important thing to do is get rid of opinion.  Once one does this one can live free.  It is best to trade in opinions for actual knowing. This means don’t have goals or plans. Those are opinions. This means don’t think you know what is going on.  It’s not possible. This means don’t think you know how it should be or how it is going to go. Those are opinions too.  This is not what thinking is for.

Thinking cannot ever represent reality.  Reality is too overwhelming.  You can’t think of, comprehend, or know in your thinking all that is going on at any given time.  Your thinking can’t even tell it’s spinning around and around on a rock that is going around something else, that is going around something else.  On and on it goes.  Pick anything you want, and you won’t know one percent of it in your thinking.  So every thought is useless in this regard. Can you not see it?  You really have no idea what is going on totally, yet your thinking will sure claim it does.  

The total mind though is another story.  It can, and does, keep track of it all.  Thinking is only a small part of the total mind that is you. Your mind has been recording everything since before you were born.  Your body is part of your unconscious mind after all.  It has been recording everything.  It knows everything.

The other day at work I was taking out some boxes to recycle.  On my way back inside I rounded the corner when another guy who worked there was coming along, we nearly collided, and I scared him.  As we were walking back he told me how he had went back there the other night and as he was going into the alley he had a vision of a big guy in the dark, and as he stepped through the darkness a big guy was in the alley.  I told him that his unconscious mind pushed the thoughts through to his thinking.  We are all physic in this way.  The mind knows where everyone is, even those we have not yet met in person.  He thought it was coincidence, but I know that his own mind was looking out for him. He is probably like everyone else and is quite afraid of the power of that realization.  

The thinking doesn't really know much at all.  This is a very painful statement for someone who solely identifies with their thinking, because it means they don’t know very much at all.  That is, they are not very aware at all.  No one wants to hear this or deal with it.  Generally it only happens when all of one’s self-created vision comes tumbling down and their life is in ruin. To be clear, the gap between a thinking mind and one that can step out of thinking is quite large.  It’s a huge gap with a great many things occurring in that gap.

So how does this relate to everyday life, it’s not obvious right?  It’s not like anyone from the outside can tell when someone has stopped thinking. It’s important to know it is a process and not some thing that happens all at once.  If you stopped thinking for a few seconds today, you are going to have to try again tomorrow.  You will have to live it again, and again.  

If one is not prepared when the thoughts stop, it will generally tear them apart. In reality the thoughts do not actually cease, they are just put in their proper place. As with anything else all things are difficult at first.  It makes knowing one’s self very important, because if one has dark thoughts/feelings going on, such things like, worthlessness, insecurity, guilt, anger, they will be manifested.  When thinking stops the magnification of those integrated things becomes quite drastic. One truly needs to have a greater degree of self knowing than not before attempting to silence the thinking part of the mind.

The universe gives us what we think/feel whether it be good or bad.  It’s actually physics.  When one is steeped in “negative” things it is best not to clear their mind else it will all come true for them.  Not many survive such things. The universe doesn't make distinctions regarding good and bad.  Those are human inventions.  

The best way to think of it is as a light wave, the same height it achieves, it must achieve the same low, else it is not a wave. This wave function is in everything. From your thoughts to the rocks you walk on.  

The greatest wave is love.  The deeper in love one falls, the deeper the sorrow that follows.  The deeper the sorrow, the greater the love that follows.  On and on it goes. Can you even imagine all the waves, affecting waves, affecting waves.  Every atom is emitting waves.  Every being, every star, on and on, forever.  You see, your thinking can’t wrap around all that detail, yet it is still happening every second of your life. Just stop thinking, and you will know.  This is why you don’t want your thinking making decisions for you.  It can’t know what’s up.

In Osho’s book on meditation he tells a story of a man who wanted to know how to do it.  Stop thinking, meditate.  He had tried everything.  Sought all the great masters and yet he couldn't stop thinking.  He was told of a great master who knew the way, but he lived in the Himalayas and was impossible to find.  He was told no one ever finds this old man, but he was determined.  

For over two years this man searched for the Master.  He was at the end of his life.  Starving, dying of thirst.  He collapsed in the doorway of an abandoned cabin; no old man inside.  He thought he had found him, but it was empty and deserted. All his hopes crashed home into reality. Laying on his back, sick with defeat, weary to die, he just stared at the clouds.  He had given up.  His mind went clear.

Just as it happened an old man walked up to him, leaned over his face blocking his vision of the clouds, and asked him if he still wanted to know how to meditate.  The man said no, he had figured it out. He now knew how to stop thinking.  The idea is to give up on your thinking.  To realize it can never be what you think it is.  

One more story, but told by Krishnamurti.  Three great scholars/thinkers were in a taxi on their way to a great convention where all the spiritual leaders of the world were gathering.  The topic of discussion was awareness.  The three men in the back were enthusiastically debating their opinions and ideas about awareness and how aware they were when suddenly the car bounced violently and all their heads smacked into the ceiling of the car. As they recovered from the shock of it they were imploring of the taxi driver what had happened?  He had ran over a goat. Haha what a joke. These aware men needed to ask what had happened.  

I tell this story to people a lot and most of the time they don’t get it.  Do you get it?  How aware could they possibly be?  They didn't even know where they were at.  They had no idea what was going on so sure were they that they were aware.  What a joke.

Do you see what this shows about thinking?  Thinking can never be aware.  Thinking can never have knowing; it can only be a reflection of it. At its best it is merely a mirror. If you are thinking you can’t possibly be aware. It’s just not what thinking is for.  Actual knowing comes with understanding your own intuition, which requires not thinking. One has to be aware of one’s Self for that. You see, the total mind is all knowing, so simply silence thinking and one is immediately aware.  Why?  Because the total mind already knows.  It is merely the thinking that is confused.

The issue is that stopping thinking takes tremendous effort if one has been doing nothing but thinking their whole life. Absolutely anything the brain does that much, for so long a time, would be terribly hard to stop.  Anything.  I tried for months and months and months, and I am relentless when I want something.  I have an ability to single mindedly chase something down like few others I've met can. I used long distance training, yoga, sitting by large bodies of water, arguing/debating for hours, read a bunch of books on it.  I did the thing.  I radically changed my life.  I did everything I could. It really does take a tremendous amount of energy to break the habit of perpetual thinking. I didn't go hiking in the mountains for two years looking for someone else though, I sought the answer within myself, but I found it in the same way; after exhausting all options.  

It has nothing to do with this culture either.  It’s a requirement to not listen to culture.  Your true Self cares not about this broken culture, in the same way this culture doesn't care about your soul. Culture is the same as opinion.  Culture is a collective opinion.  It doesn't have much to do with reality at all.  In this way culture doesn't want to be aware because that would be the end of the culture as we know it.  

I am still talking about love now.  If you do what this culture says you should do regarding love; that isn't love.  It’s like the person who admits public school is crazy, but then says they are educated because they went to public school.  Whack.  Being adjusted to a sick culture is not a measure of health.  Jiddu Krishnamurti knew what was up.  

Spiritual life is love.  The love of life.  If you ever stop thinking; you will know love. It won’t be that squishy feeling this culture says love is.  Love is much more than some passing physical feeling. This is an uncomfortable truth for those stuck in the culture: Stopping thinking requires one to be fearless.  That means not being afraid to be wrong. Fear is something the thinking is for, which means fear will keep the thinking engaged.  So you see, to be in love one must be fearless.  Else it is not really love.  So to live a spiritual life one must be fearless.  Like I said, in love with life.

How again does this apply to life?  Here is how I use it.

Some years ago I met someone.  The circumstance was all wrong.  We met in what was to me the worst possible situation.  I was all facade and bravado. My inner self is never available publicly.  I am too introverted for all of that. She was standing there and I was just doing what I do.  Being me.  I even warned her right off the get.  I knew the second I met her she wasn't on my level. First time we met I knew I would love her deeply, so I let her know right up front.  

You see I didn’t think, I had achieved a state of grace before I met her.  Because of the life I have lived there were all kinds of things I could have listed that disqualified her as someone I would date.  If I had applied all those judgments and opinions this culture says one should make, I would never have called her.

I didn't do any of that though.  I didn't list the reasons, her faults, and mine, why it would or wouldn't work.  I just looked at her, and I loved her. It was all I needed. My intuition said handle it, and I did. I made it happen. In my thinking I can find faults, and things wrong, with anyone.  Give me six months with the most beautiful, intelligent girl in the world, and I will pick her apart. That is not love though.

This person was a soulmate. I knew it from the get.  Had I been using my thinking to decide I would have passed her by.  I took a lot of flack from friends for making decisions I made. No one could figure out why I was with her.  That is how you know you are in love; when all the world is against you. It was someone I felt safe with, and my friends didn't know anything about that.  In my life that is the equivalent of winning the Powerball.  It’s greater than the lottery.  

That relationship came to be the best in so many ways that I had never had in life before I could not have imagined it.  How could I have known that in my thinking the first time we met?  How could my thinking even know that two months into it?  Thinking can’t know such things.  If I had listened to my thinking I would have lost some of the best times of my life.  They never would have happened.  

I went with my gut, my intuition, my whatever you want to call it. It never fails me. It is crucial to realize that being in a state of grace does not mean messed up things will never happen. They assuredly will because they are the greatest teachers.  Love requires great awareness, and a tough skin.

Love of one’s self means awareness of one’s Self.  This can be used to measure if one is being honest about love.  If one is not really aware of their Self, then they don’t really love their Self. These are the same things you see.  If you love your self you love your body.  It is you.  You are it.  They are not separable.  Being aware of intuition requires awareness of the body.  This has nothing do with thinking.  Try it right now.  Try to be aware of every single part of your body all at once.  Sight, hearing, touch. organs. tissues.  All of it.  You won’t be able to think.  Try to go out past your body, into the universe; be aware of it all at once: you won’t be able to think.

If you practice that as much as you do all those meaningless things in life you would be on another level in life.  Practice it.  As you attempt to be totally aware it will be certain thoughts that come to mind.  Why?  Why is it those thoughts that the mind lets through?  Why aren't you aware of what is allowing those thoughts through?  Can you see what I am getting at? Can you not see how important this is when meeting someone.  A great love of your life could be standing right in front of you, but because your opinion says someone who is not in good shape is not attractive you pass her up.  What a shame?  What a loss?  Maybe she needed you to get that done?  Maybe she needed you for a while to know how great life can be?  Maybe for you it something else different.  Maybe it is a long list of things.  Who doesn’t have a long list of criteria for a potential mate?

How could you ever know the change she will have on you?  The thinking can’t imagine such things. Stop thinking though, be aware of your Self, and the answer is always right there.  For me I saw someone I was meant to meet.  I threw out all judgments.  My intuition did not let me down.  I had some of the best times of my life.  

I did however cause myself great pain.  Even though I know it to be an illusion it is still quite painful.  I brought it on myself. I did of course have thoughts.  I made the mistake of thinking that person was someone I would be with much longer than I was.  I confused my love for her with my thoughts.  As if somehow my love for her made my thoughts magically true.  My thoughts polluted my sense of reality and pain ensued.  It caused us both great suffering actually because we were trying to make something imaginary real. I was meant to love her, no doubt, but I was not meant to live with her forever.  Those two things are about as far apart as thinking and not thinking.  I hope I expressed that correctly.

It was also painful for me because my thoughts say that one I love should love me back, and this is not the case at all.  It is rarely ever the case.  It’s just the thoughts generated by this culture that cause so much strife.  These pains were generated by thoughts, not by reality.  

For me at least, I have finally come to terms with the fact that my life is not about me.  I’ve tried to illustrate the process of not thinking.  It doesn’t happen all at once.  In my life I could stop thinking enough to see whom to love, but not enough to know how long that love would last.  My thinking created the suffering.  My thinking had me wishing for things that are not real. In reality there was no loss, only gain.  I gained so much, and lost nothing because my love was genuine.  It is only my thinking that sees a loss, and that is because thinking is the ego defined, selfishness defined.  

It was not about me.  I’m searching for god yo.  I’m breaking my heart till it opens.  I recommend you do the same.  

Thoughts are the voice of the mind.

 The chain of blogs about reality that I've been writing are going to start getting hard to understand without reading the other ones. As I'm about to point out, to understand what is going on one must look at the whole concept to understand the parts better. As I've said before, none of this is original. I'm just compiling all that I've learned. It's important to realize there is another significant aspect of the thinking voice that will covered in a different blog. Anyways....

I've heard it said by others, the thinking voice in our heads is called the monkey mind. It's time to realize you have a total mind. 

I realize I am not the first to think it, but it keeps coming back to me a statement I made recently; our thinking is the voice of our mind.  It's not complicated unless one makes it so, thoughts are the voice of the mind, like our spoken words are the voice of the body in the material world. In other words, thoughts, the thinking voice in our head, is our spiritual voice. The vocal cords produce sound waves, which technically are electromagnetic waves, but thoughts produce a higher frequency of electromagnetic waves. So in this way, thoughts are often, at least can be, much more powerful than spoken words, except one can't say a word vocally without the accompanying thought, so just imagine what would happen if you went around saying every thought out loud.

The point of this is, that in the same way when we say something out loud, it cannot be taken back, consequences ensue, relatively good or bad, it is the exact same with our thoughts. The main difference is, that the sound of one's voice eventually dies out, gets absorbed by matter, but our thoughts never degrade. Our physical sound communicates with other physical bodies with the sensory to pick up sound waves, our thoughts communicate with the immaterial as well as material; almost everything can sense thoughts.  Basically the voice is for those too insensitive to hear thoughts.

Some might ask, "Why do you think this is so?"  Well, the science is overwhelming, but it requires a ton of reading to get a sense of the whole because no one out there is really considering the whole.  Everyone has their knack or specialty.  Very few are considering, consolidating; the whole.  Consider for instance; duality. 

Let's use good and bad, or big and small, or any of those such things.  Big does not exist without small.  This means big by itself does not exist.  In reality there is no such thing as big; in reality there is big and small.  The issue here is that humans typically only see big, or small, they cannot ever physically see both.  This creates a lot of illusions in life that do not exist.  I think of it like a coin.  I can only ever see heads, or tails with my physical eyes; I can never see both.  Attempting to see both will only give me the side view, the middle, regardless of how thin the side is. Sticking to the metaphor, big and small, in reality is a coin; it is neither heads, nor tails, but is both. 

This points out a limitation of language.  Many sages, masters, what not, have gone into this issue quite deeply. What do we call the coin of big and small?  Size?  That is not appropriate either.  Size is just another facet. Size has an opposite too, so we've only created another duality using words.  The uneducated human monkey has trouble seeing the whole, so it is important even if not realized yet experientially, to understand there is a whole in reality. It's just that thoughts, words, will never be able to communicate what that is. Even though the words fail, it is important to understand this limitation of the mind. We don't even have words for the whole of things.  To realize the whole is a big part of what it is to be enlightened. 

What about the senses?  They are so limited.  We are able to sense less than 1% of what is going on right in front of our faces consciously.  We evolved with enough sensory perception to merely survive physically. This means no matter what you do, no matter how smart you are, if you are solely relying on your physical senses, in your experience you are aware of less than 1% of what is going on at any given moment.  This means, that even for a single second, to actually think one knows what is going on is absurd.  Ego in effect.  Add on top of this that your thinking is less than 1% of total brain activity at any given second, and suddenly thinking is nothing at all. We are not even talking about the mind here, we are simply talking about brain activity. The thinking aspect of our mind light up less than 1% of brain activity. It has just been pointed out that to rely on thoughts is meaningless in that it can never be a true representation of reality: not ever. I'm not saying thoughts are meaningless though, in that thought, as energy, leaves the mind, and travels the universe forever.  I'm saying thoughts are just like spoken words. They serve a purpose, but they are not who we are.

We are still evolving towards the fact that we have to survive our thoughts, same as we have to fight to survive our instinctual drives in civilization.

One facet of this coin is the issue that we live in a culture where thinking is given great priority.  Think about this.  Something which can never be a true representation of reality, something that can never actually be true, is given great priority, and is touted as truth.  This is really no different than if we gave one of our other senses great priority.  It would be just like saying because we see a rainbow, it is really there.  It isn't, but we say it is.  It is the same with our thoughts.  It's not that they are not there, but that they are not there in the way that we think they are.  Rainbows; nothing is as it seems, isn't that what they say?  Again, this is incredibly important; thoughts are the voice of the mind.  When you have a thought, it is the same as saying a sentence, but you are speaking to the whole universe with a thought. When you say something with your voice only those in proximity can hear you, but when you speak with your thoughts the whole universe can hear you.  This is why legitimate spiritual folk say to be so careful about your thoughts.  They are powerful things, just not what most people think they are.  

Spend some time looking up all the illusions our sensory perceptions fall for. There are so many optical illusions. We can't legitimately trust our vision. So it is with thoughts. If one has never been trained how to think, one cannot trust their thoughts at all. 

Try in your mind to see the whole coin.  Try to realize the whole coin.  Do not only see one side, but see the whole thing.  There is a star out there in the Universe that is so big it makes the star at the center of our solar system look like a grain of sand. What is big again? We have no idea. We live an illusion. Our monkey brains cannot grasp reality. Your mind can get a lot closer than your brain, but you will have to stop thinking to do so.

It is like trying to do one thing, while someone else is chattering away at you.  Realize this.  Separate from your thoughts; realize you are not your thoughts.  Can't you shut your mouth?  Don't you know when to shut up at work?  With your family?  Why can't you shut off your thoughts?  Thoughts are merely a very small, 1%, part of you.  Why can't you silence that inner talking? Most people I've ever known didn't even know that was an option. You can’t do it because you have not taught yourself how.  Now realize that most things have far more than a heads and a tail.  Think of your own personality, your own nature, your own being; how many facets are there?  Hold them all in your mind at once?  You can't do it can you? Can you see this limitation of thinking, with the thinker? Realize that to wrap ones mind around something totally one cannot think with the thinker.

I am trying to turn spiritual talk into a reality.  So much spiritual jargon is about this issue of grasping our own ignorance of reality. When one stops thinking one knows, and this knowing will never ever be able to be expressed with words.  Why is this?  Because when the thoughts stop, thoughts which can never be true, all that is left is the truth.  The human brain is the most amazing biological machine discovered to date, but the thinking voice aspect of it is incredibly limited.  Since before you came out of the womb your brain/body has been recording everything, sensing everything, evolving to everything, so it literally knows everything.  Our bodies are the result of millions of years of evolution in this very particular environment. The physical matter of which your brain is made is the stuff of stars, and that stuff has a memory of its own. It is billions of years old.  It knows everything.  This level of knowing is in direct correlation with just being.  If you stop your thoughts, you have no choice but to just be.  You will have no choice, but to be yourself.  There will be nothing else to be. 

The attachment to thoughts as being THE defining characteristic of mental activity is like believing the rainbow is really there.  It just isn't so. One of my favorite memes is the meme that says, if you are the voice in your head, then who is the one listening to it?

It's a pretty logical statement.  If thoughts cannot ever be a representation of reality, then thoughts are not meant to be used to determine reality. Thoughts are for communication of ideas. Memes.

So then, what do thoughts do?  They affect reality, same as our spoken words affect reality, except thoughts are, like I've said, far more out reaching. The important thing to realize is, the most important thing, is that everyone's brain is listening all the time. Jung labeled this the collective unconscious. True, 99.9% of it never crosses into most people's consciousness, but it is happening all the same.  I've said before in other blog posts, if I could somehow snap my fingers and make your total unconscious activity appear in your consciousness; you would think you were god.

Even though the person whom you spend the most time with is not ever consciously aware of your thoughts, be assured their mind is perfectly aware of your every thought.  All matter has consciousness, or it could be said differently, all matter has unconsciousness; all matter has an unconscious mind.  The entire Universe of matter is literally our unconscious. A rock for instance cannot think, but it can know.  A tree cannot think, as we monkeys do, but it has knowing. It is sentient, and our unconscious can interpret that tree knowing into our consciousness. Think here of the way in which our unconscious speaks to us through dreams via symbols.

If a European meets the lady ayahuasca she often will appear like a queen, but if an Amazonian sees her during a trip she will appear much different. We each translate reality differently.

Synchronicity has a great deal to do with thoughts.  All those supposed coincidences lined up just so; your thoughts have been perpetually going out into the universe: making it so!  Thinking of someone?  Needing it badly?  Remember that energy you had when you needed it badly, and it was suddenly there?  People always attribute this phenomenon to some god or other, but it really is their own thoughts.  Perpetuate that energy and you will always be getting what you think. This is that illusion we are god, in that the Universe responds to our thoughts, to our energy. If thoughts are electromagnetic waves, and the Universe is literally composed of electromagnetic waves, it logically follows the two are interacting. Remember, we evolved for millions of years to survive, why wouldn't part of our inborn, natural, survival processes be the ability to energetically speak the language of the Universe?

From my own experience it seems as though my thoughts became more powerful, in terms of affecting the universe, after I learned to stop thinking.  Spiritual texts confirm this phenomenon. 

The first time you have a thought and not even ten minutes goes by and you see your thought become reality; you will forever after guard your thoughts the same way you guard your tongue.  This is why the world is a nightmare at this point in time; can you imagine all the maddening thoughts of the suffering of the world?  How many sickening thoughts radiate from this planet every second of the day?  They are all perpetuating their own suffering by the thoughts they have. Look in that mirror.

This makes it true: the only way to improve the world is to improve one's self.  To know the Way; is to know one's Self.  

Idealization

I find it to be one of the more difficult attachments to get rid of.  The mental ideal.  It begins in the ego, that sense of I.  The easiest place to find it is when one is in love.  The individual will have an ideal in their mind about their object of love. They will not see what it really is.  Some say love is blind, but it is not love that is blind; it is the ideal in one's mind that is false.  The ideal is based on thoughts, and thoughts can never be a reflection of reality.

It isn't love that is blind, but the person in love that is blind.  The person in love will not be looking at the person they are in love with, they will not be seeing who they really are.  It can't be done.  No matter what anyone does; one cannot actually know the other.  It's a lie to believe otherwise.  The ideal can never be real.  Falling in love means something is true about the other that can't be seen in one's self.  If you could see who the other person really is you would not be in love.

Unfortunately it goes much deeper than just love.  It happens with almost everything.  One could say thinking is an ideal itself.  Every thought is a hope, a dream, an expressed ideal.  Think about it. Have you ever waited a year to see a movie only to be disappointed because it was not what you thought it would be?  Everywhere people treat animals like people they have idealized them so much.  Anything can be idealized.  One can idealize a meal.  Whenever I think of WiseGuys Pizza in Columbia I already have an ideal in my mind of how delicious it is going to be.  The obvious difference though is that the pizza is not very complicated.  I am almost guaranteed that it will be the same as it has always been.  It is not so with a human being.

Unfortunately it goes the other way too.  Not just material non-sense, but to the most metaphysical too.  The mental ideal, to idealize, is a reason why so many never find God.  Before they even begin the search they have an ideal in their mind regarding what God is; therefore they can never see what it really is.  This idea, to idealize, causes more suffering than any other type of thought.

It applies to the spiritual as well.  Say you are looking for a job, and in your mind you are dreaming of the perfect job.  In your head you have all these ideas about what that is, a perfect job, and turn down jobs that do not seem to perfectly match your perfect ideal.  You very well may have passed up the perfect job.  One cannot know what lies ahead by thinking it out.  No one knows what changes will occur from moment to moment in the lives of everyone involved.  You never know who you might meet next.

Let me correct myself.  This probably seems contradictory.  There is a way to know which path to take, but it doesn't have anything to do with thinking, or logic.  It has to do with intuition.  Using the example of the job.  Using intuition one can know what job is best, but using thoughts and rationalizations will not get one very far.  One must be willing to make decisions that seem contradictory to what lies on the surface.  It's just not what thoughts are meant to be used for.

Humans collectively do not yet realize that their thoughts are their mind's voice to the universe.  Nothing more.  The way that thoughts just ramble on constantly is no different than a person who just talks constantly.  Most everyone is walking around perpetually spewing thoughts out into the universe.  What would it be like if everyone did so verbally?  Strange, but because it happens quietly in our heads it is acceptable.  I say it is not acceptable.  The mind that cannot step aside from the train of thoughts isn't yet a mind at all, but yet is still merely an animal.  The monkey knows not why it does what it does; it just does it.

To be clear.  Thoughts can't be true in the sense that they are reflections of reality.  A thought is a real thing, no doubt, but it can never be an actual reflection of reality.  So thoughts about God can never be a reflection of what God really is.  It cannot be so.  If I told you I found God, it would be meaningless because I wouldn't be able to tell you anything else about it.  It cannot be communicated.  It cannot be thought.

This line of thought though has to be followed all the way down the line.  That is what thinking is for.  It is for becoming more aware.  We get fooled because so many times, with mundane things, our thoughts seem to be true.  Like that delicious WiseGuys pizza.  We think because we know what so many things are, that we know what everything is.  We do not.  We can't.  The next time we meet a person, regardless of how long we have known them, they are different.  They are no longer the same.  There is a reality occurring, nothing more, nothing less.  It is occurring despite what any of us think about it.  Our thoughts can have an effect on reality, but our thoughts do not reflect reality.  The senses are too limited.

This is why in the East they say in order to know god one must meditate, stop thinking, because a thought cannot know god.  One must gain intuition.  You can know god, but your thoughts never can, never will; it cannot be so.  You will have to learn to just be.  You will have to dig deep into your own mind, where no one else can follow.  You will have to learn what your thoughts really are.  You will have to know yourself.  Then you will know God.  It won't be what you thought it was.

Love

Typically an author would not wish for so much text to be transcribed publicly, but such is not the case with this author.  He wishes for as many as possible to hear his words.  It's an honor to share this.

It begins with a question from a person who has been listening to Osho answer other questions.  The following is from The Book of Wisdom: Commentaries on Atisha's Seven Points of Mind Training.

"What is this longing in me that no relationship can satisfy, that no tears relieve, that is not changed by many beautiful dreams and adventures?

It is so, not only with you but with every body who has a little intelligence.  It is not detected by the stupid people, but the intelligent person is bound to stumble upon the fact sooner or later - and the more intelligent you are, the sooner it will be - that no relationship can satisfy.

Why? -- because every relationship is only an arrow towards the ultimate relationship, it is a milestone, it is not a goal.  Every love affair is just an indication of a bigger love affair ahead -- just a little taste, but that little taste is not going to quench your thirst or satisfy your hunger.  On the contrary, that little taste will make you more thirsty, will make you more hungry.

That's what happens in every relationship.  Rather than giving you contentment, it gives you a tremendous discontentment.  Each relationship fails in this world - and it is good that it fails; it would have been a curse if it was not so.  It is a blessing that it fails.

Because each relationship fails, that's why you start searching for the ultimate relationship with God, with existence, with the cosmos.  You see the futility again and again, that it is not going to be satisfied by any man, by any woman; that each experience ends in tremendous frustration, begins in great hope and leaves you in great hopelessness.  It is always so, it comes with great romance and ends in a bitter taste.  When it happens again and again, one has to learn something -- that each relationship is only an experimentation to prepare you for the ultimate relationship, for the ultimate love affair.

You say, "what is this longing in me that no relationship can satisfy?"

That is the longing for God.  You may know it, you may not know it.  You may not be able yet to articulate it, exactly what it is, because in the beginning it is very vague, cloudy, surrounded by great mist.  But it is the longing for God, it is the longing to merge with the whole, so there is no separation any longer.

You cannot merge with a woman or a man forever, the separation is bound to happen.  The merger can only be momentary, and after that moment is gone you will be left in great darkness.  After that flash, that lightning, is gone, the darkness is going to be even more than it was before.  That's why millions of people decide not to go into any love relationship -- because at least one is accustomed to one's own darkness, one has not known anything else.  There is a kind of satisfaction: one knows that this is what life is, that there is no more to it so there is no discontent.

Once you have tasted love, once you have seen a few moments of joy, of that tremendous throbbing when two persons are no longer two...But you fall again and again from that peak; and each time you fall the darkness is far darker than before, because now you know that light is.  now you know that there are peaks, now you know that life has much more to offer to you, that this mundane existence of going to the office every day and coming home and eating and sleeping -- that this mundane existence is not all, that this mundane existence is only the porch of the palace.

If you have never been invited in and you have lived always on the porch, then you think this is what life is, this is your home.  Once a window opens and you can see inside the palace -- the beauty of it, the grandeur of it, the splendor of it - or once you are invited in for a moment and then thrown out again, now the porch can never satisfy you.  Now this porch is going to be a heavy burden on your heart.  Now you are going to suffer, your agony is going to be great.

This is my observation, that the people who are very uncreative are more satisfied than the people who are creative.  The creative person is very much unsatisfied, because he knows much more is possible and it is not happening.  Why is it not happening?

The creative person is constantly searching; he cannot rest, because he has seen a few glimpses.  Once in a while a window has opened and he has seen beyond.  How can he rest?  How can he feel comfortable and cozy in that stupid porch?  he knows about the palace, he has seen the king too, and he knows, "That palace belongs to me; it is my birthright."  All that is needed is how to enter into the palace, how to become a permanent resident in it.  Yes, momentarily he has been inside, and he has been thrown out again and again.

The more sensitive a person is, the more you will find him in discontent.  The more intelligent, the more discontent will be found there.  It has always been so.

You come from the West to the East; you see the beggar on the road, the laborer carrying mud on his head, and you feel a little bit surprised: their faces don't show discontentment.  They have nothing to be contented with, but somehow they are satisfied.  And the so-called Indian religious people think it is because of religion that they are satisfied.  And the so-called Indian saints go on bragging about it: "Look! the West has everything, science and technology has provided the West with every possible comfort, and yet nobody is contented.  And in our country people are so religious that they have nothing, yet they are contented."  The saints of this country go on bragging about it, but their whole bragging is based on a fallacy.  The people of this country -- the poor people, the uneducated people, the starving people -- are not contented because they are religious, they are contented because they have no sensitiveness.  They are content because they are not creative, they are contented because they have never seen any glimpse.

The West is becoming discontented because the comfort, the convenience, all that science has provided for them, has given them so much time to explore, to meditate, to pray, to play music, to dance, that a few glimpses have started happening.  They are becoming aware that there is much more to life than appears on the surface: one has to dive deep.

The East is simply poor -- and poverty makes people insensitive, remember.  A poor person has to be insensitive, otherwise he will not be able to survive at all.  If he is very sensitive, the poverty will be too much.  He has to grow a thick skin around himself as a protection.  otherwise how we he survive?  He has to become very blind, only then can he live in a poor country.  Otherwise the beggar is thee, the ill people are there on the street, dying: if he is not insensitive, how is he going to work at all?  Those beggars will haunt him.  He has to close his doors.

You can see it happening on the Indian streets.  The Western visitor for the first time becomes very puzzled: a man is dying on the street and no Indian takes any note of it, people go on passing.  This happens every day.

If they start taking note of it, they will not be able to live at all; they have not any time for such luxuries.  This is a luxury!  They cannot take the person to the hospital, they have no time.  If they start being compassionate they will start dying themselves, because who is going to earn for their family?  They have to become utterly blind and deaf.  They go on moving like zombies, seeing nothing.  Whatsoever is happening by the side is nothing to do with them, it is none of their business; everybody is suffering his own karma.

The beggar dying on the street is suffering from his own karma -- maybe he was a murderer in the past life.  You need not worry about him, in fact you should be happy that he is suffering from his karma; now his karma is finished.  Next birth he will be born a king, or something like that -- beautiful rationalizations to keep yourself blind, insensitive.

It is very difficult for the poor person to have some aesthetic sense, he cannot afford it.  If he has aesthetic sense then he will feel is poverty too much, it will become unbearable.  He cannot have a sense for cleanliness, he cannot have a sense for beauty.  He cannot afford these things -- what is the point of having the sensitivity for them?  It will be a torture, constant torture.  he will not be able to sleep in his ugly house with all kinds of dirt, with all kind of rotten things -- they are his only possessions!  He seems to be very satisfied -- he HAS to be; he cannot afford dissatisfaction.

It has nothing to do with religion, remember.  All poor people are satisfied, without any exception.  You can go to Africa and you will find the poor people satisfied; they are even poorer than Indians and their satisfaction is far deeper.  You can go to Indian aboriginal tribes, which are the poorest in the world, but you will see on their faces a kind of satisfaction, as if nothing is wrong, all is right.  They have to believe that all is right, they have to constantly autohypnotize themselves that all is right; otherwise how will they be able to sleep and how will they be able to eat?

Once a country becomes rich, it becomes sensitive.  Once a country becomes rich, affluent, it becomes aware of many, many dimensions of life that have always been there but one had no time to look at.  The rich country starts thinking of music, painting, poetry, and ultimately meditation -- because meditation is the last luxury.  There is not greater luxury than meditation.  Meditation is the last luxury, because it is the ultimate love affair.

It is good that you are not satisfied with your relationships.  Indians are very satisfied, because in fact there is no relationship at all.  It is marriage, it has nothing to do with relationship.  Parents decide it, and astrologers and palmists.  It has nothing to do with the persons who are going to get married; they are not even asked, they are simply put into a certain situation where they start living together.  It is not a relationship.  They may produce children, but it is not love.  Try to understand me.  Love means great hope, love means "I have arrived."  Love means "I have found the man or woman."  Love means the feeling that "We are made for each other."  Love means now there is no need to search anymore.

If you start with such great hope, by the time the honeymoon is over the relationship will be over.  These great hopes cannot be fulfilled by any human beings.  You are hoping that the woman is a goddess; she is not.  She is hoping the man is a god; he is not.  Now, how long can they go on deceiving each other?  Sooner or later they will start seeing the actual.  They will see the fact, and the fiction will start evaporating.

No relationship can satisfy, because every relationship beings with great hope, and that is not possible to be fulfilled.  Yes, that hope can be fulfilled, but it can be fulfilled only when you have fallen in love with the whole.  No part can fulfill it.  When you have fallen in love with the total, when the merger happens with the total, only then will there be contentment.  There will be nobody who is contented, there will be simply contentment.  And then there is no end to it.

I am all for love, because love fails.  You will be surprised -- I have my own logic.  I am all for love, because love fails.  I am not for marriage, because marriage succeeds; it gives you a permanent settlement.  And that is the danger; you become satisfied with a toy, you become satisfied with something plastic, artificial, manmade.

........But I am all for love, and I am against marriage, particularly the arranged kind, because the arranged marriage gives you satisfaction.  And love? --love can never satisfy you.  It gives you more and more thirst for better and better love, it makes you more and more long for it, it gives you tremendous discontentment.  And that discontent is the beginning of the search for God.  When love fails many times, you start looking for a new kind of lover, a new kind of love, a new quality of love.  That love affair is prayer, meditation, sannyas.

It is good that no longing for ordinary love affairs is ever going to be satisfied.  The longing will be intensified more; no relationship is going to fulfill you.  They will make you more frustrated, and no tears will relieve it, they cannot.  They may help for the moment, but again you will be full of pain and agony.  Nothing i changed by many and beautiful dreams and adventures, nothing is changed.  Yet I say go through them.  Nothing is changed, but you are changed by going through all those dreams and beautiful adventures.  Nothing is changed in the world.

Just think, this question has arisen in you.  This is a change.  How many people are there who ask this type of question?  This question is not an ordinary question; it is not out of curiosity.  I can feel the pain, the agony; I can feel your tears, I can see your frustrations in it, I can see all that misery and suffering you must have gone through.  It is almost tangible.

Nothing changes in the world.  But, falling again and again, something changes in you -- and that is revolution.  Even to ask such a question means you are on the verge of a revolution.  Then a new adventure is needed.  Old adventures failed, and a new one -- not in the sense that you have to search for a new man or a new woman -- a new one in the sense that you have to search in a new dimension is needed.  That dimension is the dimension of the divine.

I say to you: I am fulfilled and contented.  Atisha is fulfilled and contented, not by any relationship of the world, not by any love affair of the world, but having a love affair with the whole existence is utterly fulfilling.

And when one is fulfilled, one starts overflowing.  He cannot contain his own contentment.  He is blessed, and so much is he blessed that he starts blessing others.  He is so much blessed that he becomes a blessing to the world.