I was running a group with some of the kids at my psych hospital, and they were talking about depression, suicide, dark stuff like that. They kept saying to each other, "It's ok, I've felt that too. I've had that same thought." As they say this over and over, it starts to dawn on me... Have I ever had a thought no one else has had before? Has anything ever crossed my mind that was completely original, or completely my own?
I don't think so.
Everything I have ever thought, someone has thought before.
We may have the same thoughts at different times, and they may result in different actions, but we are all cut from the same cloth. Every one of us has the potential to be the next great philanthropist or the next great serial killer. We all have the seeds of both. We've all thought to help someone who needed it, and we've all thought, "I could seriously just kill them." What makes the difference is which thoughts and impulses we act on.
In which areas do we exhibit self-control, and which do we let ourselves go in? When I get the urge to punch someone in the face, I exhibit self-control. When I get the urge to go eat McDonald's, I go right ahead. This is (a very abridged version of) my value system. In my mind, it's never ok to punch someone in the face, no matter how good it's going to feel (or how much they deserve it). Eating some crappy food however, that's fine, as long as it's not too much.
This is just me. I take the actions in life that I take because of the way I react to stimuli. Put me and 10 other people in the same situation. We'll probably have all the same thoughts and feelings, but those feelings will manifest differently in each of us and we will react in a different way.
I guess I'm hung up on this because thoughts are supposed to be as unique and personal as it gets. And if that's all a load of crap, what separates me from everyone else if even our thoughts are indistinguishable?
I'm not sure anything does.
Perhaps you are aware of your thoughts.. but are you aware of being aware of your thoughts? This is a different situation than the standard subject-object relationship. The conceptual framework of language does not exhibit reality but rather symbolizes it, in the way that the word "tree" is not the actual thing itself. You eat the meal not the menu. In this same way the framework of biology provides impulsive activity that necessitates eating, sleeping, shitting, fucking, etc. In all activities of a structural framework the mechanics of their operation is a set of physical laws. Even conceptual abstraction follows the logic of biological limitation. Yet the awareness of a given object is not that object, but rather provides the space for the thing to be presented. All events and activity, objects and so forth appear as something like a movie, but it is only upon the blank screen of naked awareness that this is possible. Most people have no awareness of awareness - rather they are beings which are entirely subject to the reactionary mechanisms of deterministic law, also known as "karma". There is nothing of their being which has gravity in itself. However as soon as awareness itself becomes a focus, the center of gravity begins to shift. The content eventually becomes secondary to the space in which it arises, rather than remaining as the dominant force - which is the position it occupies in the life of the average person. It is this shift from slavery to freedom provided by practices of internal self-cultivation which is the objective of all valid wisdom traditions.
ReplyDeleteIn the actual, raw experience of the current moment, there is always something new, something that has never happened. When the entire nervous system perceives as a single cohesive unit, the possibilities are far beyond the comprehension of the conceptual mind. However there is a barrier of fear which is no less than that of imminent death. This is because the totality of perception includes a clear view of human mortality, amongst the manifold other possibilities. It is often surprising to people how tricky their own mind can be in avoiding reality as it is, and this is why people say "ahh!" when they finally understand their own minds deception upon themselves.
"One of man’s important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I. Man such as we know him, the "man-machine," the man who cannot "do," and with whom and through whom everything "happens," cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.
Man has no individual I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says "I". There are hundreds and thousands of separate small "I"s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, "I". And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.
The being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it."
- Gurdjieff