How can we change our thoughts and change our lives?

Our conscious thought distinguishes us from the animal and plant kingdom. Out of the depth of our thoughts arise the most passionate moments in our lives. The same depths have the capacity to take us to the darkest places within us. Just take a moment and identify your best and worst experience in life without thinking about it.

Without thought, what is left of those experiences? Without thought, how do you define your past or your future? Without thought, who are you?

This kind of thinking has created an increasingly popular saying “You are your thoughts” – but are you really?

Scientists have long investigated into the minds of sages and deep meditators who are believed to be capable of stopping their thoughts. What they found is that when electrical thought activity, and hence thought, ceases in our cortex or our thinking brain, we still exist. But what is even more astonishing is the fact, that when thought ceases, the intensity of experience does not fade into nothingness.

“Cogito ergo sum” which translates into “I think, therefore I am” is a famous statement by Descartes. But Descartes was a philosopher, a thinker. A thinker is, by its very nature, tight to his/her thoughts. Thus, the activity of thinking in the absence of a thought is implicitly impossible. Yet, experience is implicit in thought and in the absence of thought.

When we are consciously trying to stop our automatic thoughts from arising, the experience of life itself does not cease. The only thing that ceases is the past and the future embedded in this experience. Thoughts rely on the past and the future, in the absence of thought there is nothing else but the present moment. Without thought, we are part of the cosmic existence. Thought alone holds the capacity to experience the full diversity of human emotions whether good or bad. The experience of life in the absence of thought has a qualitatively different feel to it. Both qualities are required to experience full human beingness.

If we identify ourselves with a thinker, we cannot but live in the past or the future. I can think about what I experience right now, but I cannot experience what is right now, unless I stop thinking. Automatic thoughts will always arise and fade. Statements like “you are your thoughts” or “I think, therefore, I am” are true to our human existence but not to the essence of who we are. If we want to learn about our thoughts we cannot identify ourselves with the thinker only.

A thinker has no choice. He/she is always entangled in the web of thoughts. As long as we think we can never take a step back and look at our thoughts and thus our experience. The only way to do that is to step beyond thought itself and become the observer of thought, and thus, the observer of our experience. Awaking to the observer within is the most liberating achievement in our human existence. Thought and experience become apparent for what they are.

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE: A journey into the Mind is a presentation that illuminates the web of our thoughts and its impact on our lives and, hence, our experiences in it. Recognising the fact, that our human world as we experience is  indeed made up of our thoughts and that our thoughts do indeed hold the potential to change our lives, is an important part of any self  inquiry and personal growth. Recognising the fact that we have the ability to become the observer or witness to this process holds the key to our liberation.

This intricately interrelated web of thoughts has its own sets of laws that it is governed by. Thoughts have no existence in itself but are pure energy. Each thought resonates at a different frequency. And it is this frequency that gives us the explanation of ‘like attracts like’ or ‘change your thoughts change your life’. All our thoughts have been created individually following a very simple yet intricate logic. Understanding the blueprint that governs the input and organization of our thoughts is opening new horizons into the understanding of the self and the co-creation of our world. The only thought worthwhile observing is the thought that arises now…and now…and now. Only the active thought is alive in the now and carries within the seed that determines our future. This is the very nature of thought.

Becoming the observer of our thoughts will give us an opportunity to step in and consciously chose. Taking this inquiry one step further and recognising how thoughts are created can make us stand humble in the process of our inquiry. Learning that each negative thought has its origin in something positive, learning that each thought has been created to protect our world and sanity, learning that the world of thoughts has the most delicate structure that will allow to embrace change only if we proceed with due respect, insight and gratitude. Recognising that the filter created out of thoughts is only a key to human experience and not to the self as such, will allow us to choose with awareness what brings us joy.

Where the focus goes the energy flows. We can spend our lives untangling our thoughts or we can step back in each moment anew and step into the role of the observer of thoughts and, thus, our experience. What will become apparent is ironical. When we cease thought to be, we can see thought for what it is.

What happened in the past cannot be changed. But with insight and awareness we can find new meaning in it. Reframing is a very powerful way of influencing our present thought mind, and hence our future. The confusion lies in the fact that we cannot consciously step into our life somewhere in the past.The past is kept alive only in a thought. The key to our past and our future, thus, is found in the present thought, the experience we are living right now.

Thoughts are the window to our human experience. Their world is as intricately interlinked as the universe itself. Still, thoughts in themselves are really nothing more but thoughts.

Like a Zen master once asked: “Tell me what problem you have, if you don’t think about it.

May your path be lighter in any possible way,

Halka Beseda

A video of Louise Hay in which she speaks about the power of thoughts and how thoughts create our future.

If you wish to keep reading, here are a couple of interesting leads:

“A person is where his mind is” (Keter Shem Tov 56). The first thing is to be aware. Cease to take the mind and its designs for granted.

On very short dialogue on thoughts and thinking by J. Krishnamurti: “It’s another thought, isn’t it? Thought is trying to stop itself, so there is a battle between the thinker and the thought.

Read some interesting quotes on thought.

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