Elements of a Life Philosophy - 2 : The nature of mind and thinking

Second in a series of posts trying to write down my philosophy of life. First one here: http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/08/lifes-experiences-leaves-their-mark-on.html 

Most Indian spiritual thinkers in one way or the other talk of this notion of being without thought. At the extreme you will see writing that says that enlightenment is the state of being without thought. 

Meditation, as I’ve understood and practised it, is a process of being able to separate myself from identifying with my thoughts and instead being able to observe them. And sometimes the mind quietens down enough so that it is more or less blank. When I have reached that state in meditation, I always feel good about it. Often - unexpected thoughts pop out during this period of thoughtlessness, thoughts that would not have otherwise come to me. Thoughtlessness seems to give the space for stuff that’s buried in some way, to surface. 

Being able to observe thoughts implies that there is an ‘I’ different from the thoughts. This feels like it is a huge deal, but I’ve not been able to make much progress in taking this understanding further. 

We always identify ourselves with what we think. But our mind is an unreliable instrument. When extreme events happen they leave their mark on the mind, which stops behaving rationally in that area. So really we cannot depend on the mind to guide us correctly in most important decisions. As an example - to have a difficult conversation with a colleague at work might be objectively very important to clear up some misunderstandings or to work more effectively. But the mind protests mightily and comes up with all sorts of reasons not to have that conversation. So how to know when to trust what the mind says and when not to? If you accept that the mind is not always to be trusted, it opens a whole can of worms. Landmark’s way out of this impasse is the idea of the spoken word or declaration. Once we declare that we are something (‘happy’, ‘smart’) or going to do something (‘2 crores in turnover’) then that’s the guiding light. Our actions have to be in consonance with the declaration, not the mood or the thought of the moment. 

J Krishnamurti talked about thought arising when it is needed, for example to solve an intellectual problem, and then ceasing. Whereas normally our brain is always thinking of some thing or other. This resonates well with a distinction that someone at Landmark once made between ‘thinking’ and ‘thoughting’. The process of thinking is an active one, when we call on the brain to apply itself to some issue or matter at hand. Like making a business strategy, or planning the day's work. ‘Thoughting’ is the default process where thoughts come of their own volition. This is passive thinking and usually unproductive. A lot of our internal dialogue of complaining about people and events, worrying about the future, feeling bad (or good) about the past falls into this category of ‘thoughting’. If we eliminate 'thoughting' that leaves a lot of time when we don't need to think, we are just doing or being


Notes:
Ramana Maharishi on thoughts: " All thoughts are inconsistent with realisation. The right thing to do is exclude thoughts of oneself and all other thoughts. Thought is one thing and realisation is quite another"