Thinking & Thoughts

[piffy]

'A systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya'.

You can read it online here: http://brihaspati.net/downloads/Yoga_and_Kriya_Swami_Satyananda_Saraswati.pdf .

Possibly the most practical book ever created in regards to Transcendental knowledge. It's worth its weight in gold. The points made in this extract here seem obvious, but the obvious is often overlooked. If you have 10 mins and want to expand the possibilities of your mind, please read and follow the link. If it can help one person as it helped me, it's worthwhile.

"In this and the previous lesson we have outlined simple but effective methods of inducing temporary states of relaxation. Remember, these short-term relaxation practices are essential in order to rest and revitalize the entire body and mind. During these periods of calmness and clear mindedness we are able to take a more realistic look at life. When we are relaxed we are able to laugh at situations that only half an hour before made our blood boil; we realize that our neighbour, who only a short time before had made us extremely angry, is not such a bad person after all. When we become relaxed we can see the same situations in a new light. And this more understanding approach helps to bring about positive changes in our life. We clearly see the problems that cause us disruption and work out new ways of coming to terms with our environment. (This process occurs subconsciously providing we are conscious of the factors involved.) This helps to give us a more relaxed and understanding attitude towards life and other people. For this reason, even a few minutes conscious relaxation can help us to remould our life pattern along more effective and harmonious directions.

But this only touches the surface of the problem of tension and the inability to relax. The root cause lies in the mind. The cause lies with conflicts and fears which are embedded in the subconscious mind and whose nature we are not aware of. All we feel is the tension and emotional upsets that they cause to manifest in our lives. We experience the results, often without knowing the source of the problem. The unhappiness and tension is a certainty, but the reason is an uncertainty.

No matter what people say there is only one method of eliminating these subconscious impressions (in Sanskrit they are called samskaras) which make life a miserable affair for much of the time. The method is to know the mind. We have to explore our own mind and come face to face with these subconscious mental impressions. This requires both time and effort. Most people cannot even consider exploring and knowing their own mind because first this requires physical and mental relaxation. This is necessary so that we can disentangle our awareness from the outer environment and petty problems and direct it inwards. And most people have so many problems that their awareness is completely involved in worries and outside distractions.

So it is a vicious circle: one has so many mental tensions and stresses making it impossible to explore the mind in order to remove the deeper problems which are causing many of the disturbances that prevent one exploring the mind in the first place. Is there a way out of this dilemma? Yes, there is and this is the subject we will discuss here.

It is a method that at first seems like a moralistic code or indoctrination. But it is only a means to an end. It is a means to bring about a little more permanent relaxation in a person's life, so that he can eventually start to explore the inner realm of the mind and remove the real source of tension. In a way, it is a method of giving a firm foundation for the meditational practices which we will introduce you to in this book.

It is such a very simple method, at least to explain, that many people tend to miss its significance. Of course to put it into practice is a little more difficult. It is a method where you try to consciously invalidate negative tension- creating thoughts with thoughts that are conducive to a relaxed and harmonious way of life.

Let us take an example to illustrate more clearly. Try to imagine that you have been brought up to believe that all Eskimos are violent and ruthless. Because of this, even time you see an Eskimo, or a picture of an Eskimo, you will suffer some kind of emotional shock, perhaps not a great one, but there will be some kind of tension. If you can look at this situation a little more critically however, and consciously start to develop the idea that he is a human being, not much different to yourself, then you will start to reduce the mental tension that arises every time you see an Eskimo. This of course is only an example and probably not a good one, for the problems that generally cause us disturbances are more personal in nature. Now this method will not remove the root conflict regarding Eskimos - this lies in the subconscious. But this consciously developed attitude will help you to relax more and eventually enable you to explore your mind and eventually remove the basic problem. This method needs to be applied consciously in all aspects of life. Of course it is only intellectualisation and merely scratches the surface, but it is a valuable aid in allowing you to relax more and thereby lead you towards eliminating the deep subconscious impressions in the future. It is a tool, nothing more.

It is a method that has been preached by all the religions throughout the ages. When Christ, Buddha, Mohammed and various other religious leaders urged people to change their attitude to others, they showed deep insight into the basis of a happy, tension free life, the stepping stone to higher consciousness. When Christ said: "Love thy neighbour as thyself', it was not meant in a moralistic sense or only to bring about social harmony. This attitude is helpful in reducing mental tension and turmoil and so aiding our lives both mentally and spiritually. It is very practical advice. Of course on a higher level - love thy neighbour as thyself - is the state of realization that each person must come to when he has cleared out the mind and realized the unity of existence. But now we are concerned with its utilization at a lower level. The various injunctions of religions were aimed at bringing about mental relaxation and clear mindedness so that the individual would be able to become more aware and open to the infinite possibilities oflife and consciousness. Relaxation is the door to health, happiness and higher consciousness.

Our mental computer

Let us discuss some aspects of the brain which are very much concerned with how we relate to our surroundings and other people, and whether we habitually become tense or relaxed. Your head is the home of the most incredible computer in existence. It is a biocomputer of complexity beyond even our wildest dreams. It consists of an estimated ten to thirteen billion brain cells, known as neurons, and of an uncountable number of interconnections between these cells. The work of this computer is to receive, store, compare, analyze and direct all the data that we receive from the body and its surroundings via the sense organs of the ears, skin, eyes, nose, etc.

The brain has a memory of past experiences, of advice given to us by our parents, our teachers, our friends, and everyone and everything we have been in contact with and interacted with till the present day. These experiences determine how we react to differ- ent life situations. At any given moment data from the internal and external environment is sent via nerve impulses to the brain. A particular part of the brain called the limbic system compares this incoming information with previous experiences stored in the memory of the cerebral cortex. In the light of these memories, we respond to the data in a fixed, programmed manner. In other words, the response of our mind and body to life situations is determined by previous mental conditioning.

If the situations we encounter in life don't contradict our previous experiences then we suffer no emotional or mental tension. If, however, the incoming data from the surroundings does not fit the pattern of our memories then the limbic system starts to create tension. It is designed to do this so unfamiliar and possibly dangerous situations do not catch us unaware. We are programmed to become tense so that we are prepared for abnormal situations. It is a protective measure. Yet most of us are so badly conditioned that we respond to almost all of life situations as though they are a threat to our survival. We continually feel hatred, fear, anger and so on. We exist in a state of physical and mental tension.

Yet this over-emotional response to life situations is not necessary for twenty four hours a day. It is only necessary when we are faced with a real emergency. We need to change our mental programs, so that unfamiliar data from the environment does not automatically bring the limbic system into action. In this way we can begin to relax and enjoy life more.

Many over-reactions in life are due to subconscious memories carried over from childhood: fear of strangers, of the dark, of insects, dislike of the opposite sex or of people from another country. These are part of mental conditioning and cause the limbic system to make us tense whenever we meet life situations that don't reinforce our mental conceptions. For example, if we have a fear of the dark and suddenly the brightly lit room we are sitting in is plunged into darkness, the reaction of fear in this circumstance is not necessary; it is a result of previous experiences stored in our memory. This is just an example, although similar reactions occur throughout our lives. One of the biggest complexes that modern man has is the fear of failure; the desire to be successful. Every person feels that he must be a great success or he will lose the respect of his friends, family and himself. This fear is only a programmed response; perhaps our parents and teachers continually indoctrinated us that the only worthwhile people in the world were those who 'made it'. As a result we are continually worried about failing; every situation we meet in life, every person we meet is a challenge, for they may show us up as failures. And so whatever we do in life is treated as an emergency, and we remain perpetually tense. It is only when we mix with close friends, who we know will never consider us as unsuccessful that we actually relax. This is a good example of how our mental programming governs our life and makes us unable to free ourselves and relax. Again this type of programming is not necessary - it exists only because of our faulty way of thinking and education.

The physiological ego

Man's brain is a continual hive of activity, although he is never aware of this, except for the tiny portion which reaches his conscious perception. All the sensory data is being processed in the subconscious realms of the mind. Data is being continuously received from all parts of the body and from the external environment via the sense organs and either acted upon, stored or ignored. Unawareness of all this activity is essential, for it allows one's consciousness freedom to deliberate on a limited field of interest. If a person was aware of all this subconscious activity he would be inundated and overpowered by the continual influx of millions of bits of information. What we are interested in is what decides which particular information reaches conscious perception.

It is scientific research during the last few years that has thrown some light on this question. It has been found that a part of the brain called the reticular activating system, situated at the top of the spinal cord, performs this function. This system acts like a sluice gate allowing only a small percentage of the incoming data to the brain to reach conscious perception. How does it decide what should reach man's conscious attention and what should not? It allows information to arise to our consciousness only if the data reinforces or fits in with the pattern of mental conditioning, or if the incoming information is particularly urgent. So perception is dependent on what a person's mental state will allow him to perceive. Other incoming data which doesn't fit in the mental program remains in the subconscious realms of the mind and so a person is unaware of it. We perceive the world around us in accordance with the dictates of our present mental apparatus. For example, if you meet someone you dislike, then the information which tends to reach your awareness is that which confirms and reinforces your condition- ed prejudices. If you like a person, then you tend to become aware of that information which confirms the friendship. We generally see the good points of our friends and the worst points of our enemies.

Of course, if incoming sensory impulses tell us something different and are very powerful inputs, then this can overcome the programming. For example, sometimes we see bad features in our friends and good features in our enemies.

So you can see that our perception of the world depends very much on our prejudices. This is generally called the ego, especially in psychology; it is that which creates all the distinctive features of your 'self. We are at the mercy of our programming. If mental programs have been written to see hatred around us, then we will interpret all phenomena in this light. If our program says that all people in general are friendly, then we interpret all actions by others as being friendly in nature.

Tension: the outcome of mental programming

Man's problem is that the outside world rarely reinforces the pattern of most of his mental conditioning. The result is that the limbic system is continually creating mental and emotional stress responses. We remain unable to relax. Tension becomes a normal part of life. It is not the brain that is faulty; it is the narrow limitations of our mental program put into the brain that is the cause of the problem. The program is unsuitable for our environmental situation.

Our attitude towards life depends on our mind; an unsuitable, narrow, unrealistic, incompatible mental state leads to continual conflict with our surroundings and to unhappiness and stress as a consequence. An expansive, realistic mental program leads to harmonious interaction and good relationships with the environment and with other people, which must lead to happiness and relaxation. Our lives can either be an expression of joy or an expression of discontent; it depends on the content of the mind.Are we then completely at the mercy of our mind? Yes, we are, but at the same time we have the ability to throw out the contents of the mind that cause so much havoc in our lives. We can change our mental program or at least modify it by removing all the dross or unwanted parts. All that is required is the desire to reorientate our life along new pathways and to translate this desire into personal effort.

The eventual method is by exploring the mind, facing the inner contents and clearing out the rubbish. But before we can do this effectively we need to bring a measure of relaxation into our lives to enable us to relax sufficiently in the first place to direct our awareness inwards. The method to bring about an initial degree of relaxation is by consciously trying to rewrite our existing program.

REPROGRAMMING THE MIND:"

[Flobalobalobalot]

. thoughts, just like memories & emotions, 'arise' into consciousness ..

& try as 'I' might 'I' can't stop them .. .

also, try as 'I' might 'I' can't make them happen .. .

. . .sometimes they 'arise' in tandem with arising externally viewed events ..

. .on occasion a coincident link may be observed between an arisen thought & the presented 'external'. . .

some states of acquired consciousness clearly present 'streams' of arising thoughts 'PRIOR' to observable events taking form ... . in a coincidentaly linked 'stream' of ongoing creation . . .

noting suchlike observations can lead to an increasingly broader comprehension of existence ..

mundane existence is the 'play-pen' version .

interaction with ongoing creation & its source is only a thought away.

~loba~

........................

"We must discover new frontiers... People have been standing for centuries before a worm-eaten door, making pinholes in it with increasing ease. The time has come to kick it down, for it is only on the other side that everything begins." ~Raoul Vaneigem.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Flobalobalobalot

[Floyd]

Alan Watts; The Idea that Thought is the Root of All Suffering

"For many of us, our thoughts are used to create meaning. For whatever happens in our day, we have preconceived notions based on how we would like them to be. For example, if we see a friend with a new girlfriend that you're attracted to, immediately the seeds of jealousy are sown as you attach meaning to it. Why does he get a hot girl like that and I don't? Such thought, the attachment of meaning to it, and trying to fight the thoughts and make them go away, is the root cause of suffering, depression, clouding one's thinking, and destroying happiness.

What if we simply stopped thinking, or analysing. The great psychiatrist Alan Watts once said that "he who thinks all the time has nothing to think about but thoughts, and lives in a world of illusion." When we stop thinking, and attaching meaning to things and just let things be, without judging, without attaching meaning, and just think that something just is amazing clears are mind and we are able to see reality in its purest form.

If we were to allow are thoughts to be, and realize that they are not reality, and they are not something that we can wish away, or touch and control, and allow them to be and flow like a river, all suffering and anxiety would end. We would still think, but instinctively, as nature intended. Our mental processes would see our friend with the hot girl and just process it as our friend with a hot girl. The driver who cuts us off while we're on the highway is, what it is, not what we expect it to be. Our minds and instincts are still there to cause us to react appropriately to steer to avoid the accident, or deal with any situation that comes are way, so the rest is chatter, or artificially created meaning.

If you can ever remember being in a situation when you felt overjoyed, try and relive it. You were probably not thinking at all, nothing in the world mattered but the moment. Or perhaps if you were an athlete, and you were on fire and everything you did was down flawlessly and you could do no wrong - it's known as "the zone" by some people. You may have remembered that as soon as you thought about it, the zone went away.

So, if we create are own thoughts, why do we make ourselves suffer by attaching meaning to events and places when there is no such thing as meaning in the physical world. Perhaps it's our heightened sense of self importance, thinking that we have to be something special, that there must be some kind of meaning, something larger than ourselves. However, this all pride and vanity getting in the way of the highest purpose of all, being in tune with nature and living in the now. After all, the past and future do not exist. Never will you or anyone do anything in the future or past unless you own a time machine. Life is one endless moment, and the purpose is to be in it. Lots of problems and a lot of wars have been created by powerful people attaching a great deal of meaning to events and circumstances when in the grand scheme of the Universe it is of no significance.

Also, in terms of achievement, I used to think that I had to think really hard to achieve things. This only clouded my mind, kept me out of the moment, and ruined my future because I could not achieve my potential unless I was 100% in the moment, which is the only time when you can do anything at all. So in reality, thinking not only leads to suffering, but it leads to failure as well. Stop thinking, let your instincts be your guide, and you will be capable of amazing things. It may take a lot conditioning, including meditation, be you can reprogram your mind away from the initial programming of worrying about the past, the future, what others think and the meaning of life. Your brain is a product of billions of years of evolution, allow the computer to do it' work and don't get in the way by attaching meaning to your thoughts. Let them flow like a river, and happiness and abundance will follow."

eta:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n4Nyl7dyu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE5OGBjtTVU

Edited June 29, 2013 by Floyd

[Greengrocer]

Piff, Floyd.. Super posts.!

Quote from first Video. Alan Watts, the brain in work...

Degedidididi boop.. degedidididi boop

[Ineedweed]

I had a great thought, then I forgot it. But it's the thought that counts.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Ineedweed

[mrchang]

Im thinking about avin a speed wank n then hitting the sack....

[Guest HailCannabis]

Think you can think? Think again! Think you can think? Think again! Think you can think? Think again! Think you can think? Think again! Think you can think? Think again! Think you can think? Think again! Think you can think? Think again!

Sorry. Last time I took Lsd, strong Lsd, on my own, I spent hours saying this over and over to myself in my head. I eventually fell asleep, completely exhausted and fucked up from all the thinking, and I've not touched acid since

Edited July 2, 2013 by HailCannabis

[lovin' Mary]

MONSTER TRUCKS!

[Twine]

I think sometimes it all just a load of bollocks,to sit ponder

too much thinking and lack of action,talking shit and listening to utter shit that's thrown at me on a daily basis.

It's hard to get them empty days, when you can get lost in yourself,with out distraction and influence,

Isolation and solitude are welcome in busy times.

[Floyd]

“You superior humans, what do you think? Am I a soothsayer? A dreamer? Drunkard? A dream interpreter? A midnight-bell? A drop of dew? A haze and fragrance of eternity? Do you not hear it? Do you not smell it? Just now my world became perfect, midnight is also midday – Pain is also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun – be gone! or you will learn: a wise man is also a fool. Did you ever say Yes to a single joy? Oh, my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained together, entwined, in love – if you ever wanted one time a second time, if you ever said 'You please me, happiness! Quick! Moment!' then you wanted it all back! – All anew, all eternally, all chained together, entwined, in love, oh then you loved the world – you eternal ones, love it eternally and for all time: and even to woe you say: Be gone, but come back! For all joy wants – Eternity!”

Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’

Edited July 5, 2013 by Floyd

[piffy]

"Humanity could be compared to two and a half thousand million greyhounds rushing in pursuit of a mechanical hare on a racetrack.

These human greyhounds are taut, overtense, avid and violent, but Zen (yoga) tries to teach them that what they think is a real hare is only a mechanical hoax.

The moment man fully realizes what is implied by this truth he 'lets go' and the bitterness of his struggles and violence are succeeded by relaxation, peace, harmony and love.

The consequences of such a release are immense, not only for the physical, nervous and mental health of a man as an individual, but also for humanity as a whole."

Robert Linssen in the book Living Zen

Edited July 5, 2013 by piffy

[Flobalobalobalot]

"realization and liberation are simultaneous" ~The Tibetan book of the dead.

[Greengrocer]

Great quote flob n post piff, I second that.!

Isolation and solitude are welcome in busy times.

I couldn't say this over a year ago, but I can find both in a busy city.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Greengrocer

[FunkyJazzJesus]

just like we're deciphering the laws of physics, we should really be trying to find the laws of the mind now, it seems like we're only able to see everything as atoms though in this sense, everything looks the same and over complicated, indecipherable without taking steps away.

Edited July 6, 2013 by FunkyJazzJesus

[BudFan]

I often waste time thinking about things from the past that shouldn't matter anymore. I need to try and change that.

This is very honest of you Sp1n and I applaud that.

I think the point you raise affects many people, probably most, at some point(s) during their lives. Certainly, in the past, I have been guilty by the same type of thought or dwelling on subjects.

If hurt, angst or regret from past events - concerning people & relationships, or circumstances - come to dominate our lives, this represents, in a way, the death of the human soul. We should always seek to be forward looking (not looking back), hopeful, appreciative of the moment and at ease with the past.

To find the strength / courage to reconcile ourselves with life, or to forgive others (or seek forgiveness from them), is an exceptionally liberating experience. Sometimes, it is not easy to reach this point, but it is always more than worth it.

Anyway, I am sure you will indeed manage to change regarding this matter. You are already going through a change, which started when you recognised the need for it.

Good luck fella