The reason I live free of thoughts is not because I no longer think, not because my brain no longer creates thoughts. It is because I completely understand what thoughts are. I experience thoughts as thoughts. I no longer mistake them for reality. And this is why I live free from thoughts. And freedom from thoughts is freedom from suffering.Freedom from Suffering
If any experience of suffering, no matter how subtle, should arise, I open to it fully without resistance. It always leads back to a thought. In doing this thousands of times over the years with myself and others, this has never failed to happen even once. Sometimes the thought is deeply repressed and unconscious, but without resistance to the feeling, it bubbles to the surface and is set free. It’s set free because it is always realized as just a thought and, once it is let go, all suffering immediately ceases.
Resistance to Truth
This is very important to know. I realize how resistant most of us are to accepting the truth of this. There is very strong conditioning to experience thoughts as more than thoughts, to experience thoughts as reality, as truth, or at least as “my truth”.
And there is great resistance to accept that ALL suffering comes only from these thoughts that are believed as truth.
It seems that most of us would rather continue suffering, no matter how bad that suffering is, than accept
- that thoughts are just thoughts, not reality, and
- that ALL suffering is created by these thoughts mistaken for reality.
Freedom from Chronic Pain
I have helped many people experience complete freedom from chronic pain that has gone on for over 20 years, not because I’m a great healer or have some special skills, techniques or practices, but simply by helping them reduce their attachment to certain thoughts. This freedom from pain would be complete and permanent if the conditioning to believe their thoughts was not so powerful that it arose again within a few days of seeing me or sooner. For some this does happen. But for most the addiction to and belief in their thoughts is too powerful, so pain returns again along with the belief in their thoughts. It takes practice for this to be complete. It’s almost never a one shot deal. It depends on motivation and readiness more than anything else.
There are many simple practices to help free us from our addiction to and belief in thoughts. Most spiritual practices are for this purpose in one way or another. Only in this way can we experience Truth. But we must be willing to do this.
Suffering
When our addiction is very strong, as it is in most people, we are not yet ready to surrender this addiction. We must hit bottom first. That is the reason for suffering. That is the gift of suffering. It helps us hit bottom. For most of us it is necessary to hit bottom before we are ready to give up such an entrenched and reinforced addiction. Society looks down on alcohol and drug addiction, but it completely supports addiction to thoughts. Without addiction to thoughts we could not be manipulated or controlled by others.
Just as it is possible for a drug addict or alcoholic to be free of their addiction, it is possible to be free of addiction to our thoughts. It begins by understanding what our thoughts really are, not truth, not reality, just a thought, a limited, abstract representation of truth. When we no longer believe our thoughts are truth or an accurate representation of reality, we are in a position to see them as they are. Just accepting this, we can let them go, let them be what they are, and no longer an obstacle preventing us from experiencing life as it really is.
There are many simple practices on this website to help free you from this addiction to thoughts. But the first step is recognizing that the addiction exists. That’s always the hardest step. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” If you ever experience suffering, no matter how subtle, hopefully you now know where to look for the true cause.
Thanks Peter, such a simple truth and yet so difficult to apply. It’s like trying to put out fire with fire. Thoughts negating each other. As thoughts can never be truth yet are the source of all creation their negation lives only this moment, which is nothing more then emptiness realized in the physical universe that is continously created by repeating desires. It’s the split of oneness through the thought of self awareness and its subsequent desire to see itself after infinite being as one. As ramana maharshi pointed out it is that emptiness was bored. So it wanted to see itself. And here we are stuck with thoughts that are never neutral and always arising from subconscious emotions. It is these emotions that stem from the original desire to feel, experience and be split into two- the seer and the seen. Ying yang, Male female and then the subsequent longing for joining and oneness again. A infinite process of world appearances coming and going. As the I is the source of this the ‘I am’ thought is the creation of the reflected universe, the source separation. The desire to find love in another, to experience oneness through this body is the cause of suffering and also contains the path to the end of suffering. No thought no suffering what remains is being this moment seeing its creation. Back in emptiness being bored. What a cosmic joke…
Rishi
Hi Rishi, I do not experience emptiness as being boring, quite the contrary. It is life itself and the essence and potential of life. Find what is neither nothing nor something, what neither exists nor does not exist. There is nothing we can say about actual Truth. It is completely beyond the reach of the human mind. The brightest genius on earth cannot describe it, imagine it, or think it. Why should you or I? Find what is neither something nor nothing nor in between something and nothing. Find what neither exists nor does not exist. In fact, all these words are meaningless to Truth. Find this and you will never again say boring or not boring. The complete silence of your mind will be more than enough. And you will be very happy. You will discover something that few people ever realize and yet is far more intimate than your own breath or heartbeat.