Where do your thoughts come from?
Who are you? What is life? Are you your thoughts, or are you the thinker of your thoughts. Who is controlling your thoughts, and where do they come from? Are they really yours, do they come from your mind, or do they come from some external source? When you can't think of that word that you know you know but can't remember, where is that thought? How can a thought be blocked by yourself, and why does that happen?
These are just some of the questions that spring to mind when I start to consider the question of where my thoughts come from.
My thoughts seem to exist in an endless stream or monologue. I do not feel that I am in control of them. It's not like I really seem to choose these words, these ideas.. they just keep springing up out of nowhere. Sometimes they are critical or fearful; and sometimes they are these amazing ideas, amazing thoughts, that seem to 'spring out of nowhere'. After 44 years of non-stop thinking, I think the time has come for me to ask myself this very important question. Here's something that may help to elude the truth. I've noticed that my thoughts, and the quality of them, seem to be very linked to how I am feeling! It's quite crazy really how my thoughts and actions seem to be totally associated with my feelings. When I am super happy, or something really amazing happened to me, my thoughts become very positive indeed. I feel much more generous, and wanting to engage with people, and help people. My whole perspective of the world seems to shift when I am feeling good .. suddenly I can see the good in all people. Its almost like my whole world is a reflection of my mood and thinking! What I have come to learn, and this is significant, is that it feels like feeling of 'feeling good' comes before my thoughts! It feels like my thoughts and experiences of the world are some kind of mirror of my emotional state. My eyes are drawn to beauty, and my experiences and interactions are totally different. Basically, the whole world seems to shine and I see beauty everywhere.... and my thoughts reflect that.
'You Are Not Your Thoughts,
You Are The Experiencer Of Your Thoughts'
When I have had a hard time, am not happy, stressed out about things, it's a whole other world. My thoughts are like a repetitive whirlwind that just cycle in on the same ideas and frustrations. I end up dwelling on things, instead of thinking about things. It feels quite unproductive really, and never really helped me pull myself out of the situation. No matter how much I try to change my thinking when these things happen, sooner than later when my attention wavers these negative thoughts start cycling back in my mind. The world looks very different, the way people react to me is very different, and I don't see beauty everywhere anymore. When I'm feeling that way, I see problems everywhere and lose the will, drive and hope that my problems will subside. Thoughts are clearly so important, and seem to effect us very strongly. And yet the question remains, what actually are they? Are our thoughts the driver of our lives, or are they indeed just a mirror?
Once I had a thought that I should quit my job. This was 15 years ago whilst at the very start of a well paid long term get rich Internet job. I was basically guaranteed to be very rich in a few years and would just have to keep working very long and hard hours more or less 7 days a week. About 6 months into this job, one night whilst getting ready to sleep this thought just popped into my mind! It said "You Have To Quit Your Job".. very calm and simple, and direct. I head this and was moved by it. I felt is was true somehow but didn't really know why exactly. Then i asked 'my self', when!? The voice came back with the answer "right now". Being a pretty intuitive kind of person, i did just that. I literally got out of bed and resigned my job by email. It felt great! The story worked out pretty well too as he continued to pay me for a couple of years to just be on standby if he needed me. In the meantime I left to India to do some soul searching and find a better direction.. but that is another story.
The message here is that I think there is more than one kind of thought. We have our normal daily thoughts. These are our mirror thoughts and are a part of our ego. These ego thoughts are the ones that fill our minds day in day out. I call these the reflections. They mostly serve no useful purpose, and take us out of the present and into the past or future. For many of us they also help us to avoid our pain and our hardships. We are able to distract ourselves from our most important feelings by over thinking. These thoughts are the mirrors of our feelings. If we ever want to learn to control them we have to find out how to manage our feelings and emotions. Part of that is down to simple things like meditation, pranayama, yoga, music etc. These practices go a long way to clearing our energy systems and giving some space to other things. Anyone who as done a good yoga session, or meditation knows how much quieter the mind becomes, and what a joy that is. With that comes much more inspiration, ideas, creativity, energy, and overall positivity. When our mind is quiet, we are able to get in touch with who we really are.
You are who you are,
Not who you think you are!
I believe we must learn to quieten the mind in order to know and understand the real thinker, our real selves. Sometimes it feels like we are our thoughts because they occupy so much of our conscious space. The thing is, we are SO much more than our conscious mind. That is a tiny fraction of who we are. As we know, there are times our mind doesn't give us what we want, or wont give us the inspiration that we are looking for, And yet it is always there. When our mind is quiet, we can start to hear our real selves. Within our being and real self is infinite creativity, great inspiration and intelligence, universal love, and great creative power. It is not possible to quieten the mind by trying to stop thinking. The only way is to give your higher self just a little bit of space. Just make SOME effort to make that space for it and you will start to become who you really are. The voice behind the voice, that is the ultimate guide and director. It is that voice we should yearn to hear. That is the voice of truth. That is the higher self, and that is who we really are. This is very easy to do, but you just have to do it. Chanting, yoga, mediation, music, art and selfless service are just some ways to do make some space for your real self.
When you throw a stone into a pond,
you see the ripples of water move.
If you look at yourself you will see your reflection is warped.
It is only when the water in the pond is still
that you can see your reflection properly.
Likewise, only when there is stillness in your mind,
can you see who you really are.
Have a beautiful day!
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