An Insight - Thoughts Are Clever But You Can Expose Them

[The White Belt]

Listen to your inner chatter. The constant commentary.

How does it sound? Perhaps it sounds like your voice?

You can hear it can't you? Clearly..

 

WRONG! 

It sounds like absolutely nothing. It makes literally no sound. No sound at all. Sounds are physical vibratory air puffs that travel through the air itself.

You have been lied to. And you hearing it? Also WRONG. It isn't travelling through your ears at all. It's making no sound and nobody is hearing it.

It doesn't exist. You just THINK you are hearing your THOUGHTS. Do you see how clever they are. Keep seeing that an 'auditory' thought is not auditory at all,

and you will see the illusion and there for, over time, loosen the grip.

 

Now see, in your mind, very clearly what you had for breakfast this morning. Heck, even what you did 10 minutes ago if you want. 

You see that, right? 

NO! You don't see that! Nothing is travelling through your eyes. Visual thoughts are not visual at all.

This is a down-right LIE! You aren't seeing squat. You aren't hearing squat. You only think you are.

Expose these things! Gently, gently. Keep seeing, the illusory nature of thought. An illusion about an illusion.

No wonder these things make us suffer. We 'hear' these things all the time and 'see' these things all the time, that are fake, fake, FAKE. 

[Truth]

The ultimate lie/illusion --> fear! (Not to make "the ultimate" a definitve statement but you get the idea.)

Edited July 22, 2017 by Truth

[Loreena]

@Truth Fear that the those thoughts might be true !!

Edited July 22, 2017 by Loreena

[Shin]

That makes me wonder how dreams can seems that real, if day to day thoughts are that fake, even when we're totally in them.

Would it be possible that when we dream, it's not happening in the brain at all, but we experience an another part of reality ?

Interesting !

 

[The White Belt]

@Shin I've heard from numerous enlightened folks (indirectly, I don't personally know them ;-)) that they don't dream! It's more monkey chatter!

The dreamless sleep is the deepest sleep. If you sleep without any dreams you will have the most refreshing sleep you've ever had! Not to be confused with not remembering your dreams though! 

[Markus]

1 hour ago, The White Belt said:

@Shin I've heard from numerous enlightened folks (indirectly, I don't personally know them ;-)) that they don't dream! It's more monkey chatter!

I've studied a few people's ideas on dream yoga and sleep yoga. They say that yogis who've burnt through their karma have clear light dreams, basically non-dual awareness without objects.

[Joseph Maynor]

I'd say that the sounds you hear in your mind are real.  And you're right, they are not the same as external sounds.  The thoughts triggered by the sounds in your mind are real too.  The thought-stories are not real, but the sensation of the thoughts are real.  I think people go too far with the Maya concept.  Maya is not impressions so much, it's conceptions.  What is real are the impressions.  You being the self-aware impressions is reality.  Not being by doing anything, just realizing you already are what is True, what is real.  Impressions are not technically distinct though.  Reality is one unified flow.  Impressions are sort of identified out of that flow.  But it is not like impressions are mere thought-stories or symbols.  Impressions are pieced-out of the singular flow, sectioned-out of it.  So, impressions stand at a much higher level of real-ness than thought-stories do, even if individuation of impressions pre-supposes limits that don't exist in Nature.  Like when you are walking outside and you hear a dog bark.  That is individuation because actually your experience is all of a piece.  What your mind has done is individuate a sound and label it.  So, this does get complicated.  Are impressions real if they inherently bifurcate reality?  In that case, perhaps the claim that impressions are Maya is not implausible after all.  Sometimes I wonder if Mindfulness is inherently reductionistic because it tends to bifurcate reality into 6 cubby-holes.  Is that position towards reality egoic, overly mental?  Interesting question.  I think the answer is that if we want to have any knowledge at all we have to make at least one assumption -- and that seems to be the idea that there exists sight, smell, taste, feeling, sound, and thoughts.  But if you think about this, that is a concept too.  And it is not grounded in any impression.  And it bifurcates reality, which is all of a piece.  It privileges epistemology over metaphysics.  What is is seen though the lens of what is knowable, or what we can know.  But maybe there is an egoic perspective hiding in the bowels of that.  Am I talking crazy?  Philosophizing might be crazy, but it's not always stupid.

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Joseph Maynor