Thinking About Thinking

Most of us think we are think­ing, when in actu­al­ity we are just let­ting rou­tine sen­sa­tions pass through var­i­ous lev­els of con­scious­ness. For the most part, we are just hear­ing echoes of pre­vi­ous con­ver­sa­tions. We some­times think we know what we think, when in fact we have never really thought about what or how we think. We iden­tify with the con­tent. Pic­tures and sen­sa­tions make their way across our men­tal screens, but the one thing peo­ple sel­dom do is ques­tion how they think. They do not ques­tion the process of how they asso­ciate or con­nect the inner dots of their assumed realities.

Spir­i­tual teach­ers worth their salt encour­age us to pon­der how we think. They help us ques­tion the processes we use of get­ting from A to B. For some it is direct, for oth­ers it is cir­cuitous. Some peo­ple never make it from A to B. They sim­ply mean­der around A inde­ci­sively. B is for­got­ten or ignored. Our most com­mon think­ing pat­terns arise from how our fam­i­lies of ori­gin con­versed. If they argued, we argue with ourselves.

I am not always sure how I truly think my thoughts. We are crea­tures of habit. Cer­tain cues start auto­matic sen­sa­tions and feel­ings. They replay each day. Only the spirit within us stands out­side of the processes to point out what we are doing — or fail­ing to do. You may think you are think­ing, when you are only drift­ing down the lazy rivers of your mem­o­ries. Find your spir­i­tu­al­ity and get out of the trance.

Valid think­ing takes ques­tions about think­ing. What are my pre­sup­po­si­tions? Who told me these things? Am I a per­son or a par­rot? For now, I think these thoughts about think­ing have been thought through. My assump­tions are always up for grabs. I will not even defend what I think I think. In the end, thought is more about how than what. Thought is either a pen­e­trat­ing analy­sis of dis­cov­ery or an illu­sion for the inten­tion­ally obliv­i­ous (what Jesus called “the blind lead­ing the blind”).