Thinking equals hallucinating. I like that statement! When regarded as a process thinking often comes down to piling up thoughts, at least in my head. I even have thoughts about thoughts, thoughts about the thinker and sometimes a superthought that thinks that all these thoughts combined are me. Yes, you can call me crazy!
Doing Some Mental Photoshopping
Now if I was all these thoughts combined, that would suggest the superthought called me having power over them. And indeed when I want to think about a giraffe that pops up at my balcony, I can. I can visualize the giraffe, make it look real in my head and with a little help from photoshop make it look so real I can believe it to be true. The same applies for any thought I have about daily life, about my friends, about going out tonight, or about possible drama’s like breaking up. As soon as I combine thought with mental-photoshopping and emotion it starts to feel real. But is it?
Freedom of thought?
As soon as thought and emotions are combined we start to feel unfree and out of control. If the defintion for a belief is something like thought, mental images and emotions melted into one, then there is no such thing as freedom of thought.
As soon as I start believing a thought to be real, it is like I am putting on a shoe. The shoe might fit me initiallyand give me comfort but in the end beliefs always create a stuckness or tightness in my system. Soon the shoe doesn’t fit anymore and starts to feel like a cramp or constant hurt.
Coming back to the giraffe that pops it’s head into view at my balcony in the Netherlands. Who says I wanted to think about that impossible situation anyway? Was there any freedom in imagining having the freedom to think about that? Or was it caused by a belief in my system about what is funny, original or whatever that MADE me think it? Did it leave me any choice at all?
Content is never real
The content of thought only appears to be real as long as I believe it, but it never is real and that of course also applies to this thought itself (grins). Thinking about thought and analysing it, is stacking thought. All it really does is underline the absolute bullshit value of thought, if we are awake enough we see there is nothing real about it except the fact that it exists. But then, even the experiencer of thought is a bundle of thought that is only strengthened by some emotions, nothing real about that. Yet the experiencer keeps popping up his head in many life’s in all kinds of forms.
There is nothing wrong with thinking, it can give us joy, sadness, anger etc. The times that I was angry about having sudden thoughts repeatedly seems to be behind me (I think). It is when we start believeing thoughts or believe that there is something good or bad about (the content of) thoughts that suffering arises as that is where the belief in a someone starts. And only a someone can suffer from thoughts, beliefs and the experiences that are the result of that.
When you stop believing the contents of thought all you are left with is ’emptyness dancing it’s way through life’ or ’emtyness dancing as life’. Or ‘life dancing it’s way through emptyness’ with or without Giraffe’s on your Balcony… Whatever, never mind!
