Thoughts on Thoughts

Every moment, you have a choice....to create a thought or destroy a thought in you. - Swami Chinmayananda

I suspect it's hard to be 'thoughtless'. There's always something that our minds must be feeding on. But there are certain situations when we just experience the moment (spiritually) and do not think (analyse, judge, understand, compare) about it - maybe, when we are with a loved one, amidst nature, playing with a child and so on. Are these the moments when we feel one with everything in the world and fall in love with life? Are these the moments when we feel true joy? I'd, ironically, think so. Which means I am not dismissing thoughts. Experiences (as referred to here) make us forget we are mortals...they take us to a much higher level of consciousness. But thoughts take us through everyday life and cater to our fundamental human nature. And, it looks like we do need thoughts, or perhaps a higher version of thoughts, to tell us the difference between things we experience spiritually and things we only think about.

Thoughts can create. Thoughts can destroy. Powerful thoughts can hinder default experience. E.g: People who don't feel one with nature are probably thinking overtime. But like most spiritual leaders tell us, we can learn to master our thoughts and create or destroy them by beckoning our higher self. We can shape our thoughts to be constructive and creative rather than destructive. We can determine them and in turn see positive results flow through our life rather than let the thoughts take over and shrug as if we are helpless. Making that choice to entertain the right kind of thoughts though is quite challenging and requires us to work really hard at the spiritual level.

Talking of thoughts, I must bring up something that's been on my mind for your consideration. However primitive, naive and unintelligent this may sound, I think there is some merit in what I am about to mention. I think even unexpressed thoughts of people around us (apart from our own thoughts) influence our life - I believe thoughts have so much power that they affect us even if they've not been directed at us with the intention of influencing us. Thoughts perhaps result in vibrations around their owners and probably 'interact' with the thoughts of other people and tend to build on or modify or destroy each other depending on which of the thoughts are dominant/stronger. I read somewhere that the Universe knows not what is good or bad....it just takes in all the thoughts that come to it and processes it without any bias whatsoever. Which is why you have all sorts of things happening in the world. And as popularized by Paulo Coelho, the universe simply conspires to help you achieve whatever you want - wherein I'd like to add - irrespective of whether it is 'good' or 'bad' for you. It just means your thoughts have to be the strongest if you want to achieve what you want. Nothing else should be able to penetrate your thought vibrations!

Apart from the strength of our thoughts, what I've expressed above also makes me believe in the importance of the company we keep, the discussions and debates we indulge in, what we read and react to, how much we help others and want others' happiness (which in turn determines their thoughts towards us) and so on and forth. The world moves on the wheels of thoughts (except those that are too weak to survive)......sooner or later, I am sure a thought is either converted into action or modified/changed, or merged with another thought or destroyed. What thoughts enter our mind may not be completely controlled by us. But the choice of what we do with it and how we treat it is ours...! The good news maybe that, progressively, the way we treat the thoughts that come to us will then allow us to determine which new thoughts will be allowed to enter and be processed and which will be shooed away right at the doorstep of our minds?

How might we strengthen our thoughts and entertain the right kind of thought? Perhaps through deep introspection and reading (and listening to) people who help us introspect by provoking us in a positive way.