The Nature of our Thoughts
THOUGHTS
Where do they come from? What do they mean? What about negative thoughts?
Thoughts in Meditation
We know that thoughts in meditation come as a result of stress release - though sometimes we need to be reminded of this. A "quiet", or "deep" meditation is not a sign of successful meditation, a successful meditation occurs any time we meditate. We experience the benefits of our meditation in our daily lives, as a result of powerfully releasing stress during our meditation. When we do have a "quiet" or deep feeling meditation, it is a sign that we have released a lot of stress during other meditations, such as the morning meditation of the day, allowing us to experience more readily the layer of 'ritam', which we experience in our deepest meditations. Our practise is taking us towards the state of established eyes open 'ritam', which occurs as a result of the purifying of the physiology and releasing of the stresses embedded there. So thoughts in meditation indicate the wonderful releasing of those stresses, which over time, will lead to the dawning of a stabilised, spontaneously occurring experience of eyes open ritam, the integration of individuality with Universality, the ability to experience Being, along with thinking, naturally, all the time.
Thoughts outside of Meditation
So, then what about the thoughts outside of meditation?
It's worth remembering the simple truth: you are not your thoughts. Often we have been used to identifying ourselves with our thoughts - putting so much meaning into them, believing them as truth and engaging with them. They are essentially waves of energy that bubble up from the unbounded field of creative intelligence, our deeper nature, or bubble up through the nervous system as an indication of stress leaving the system.
In the Vedic worldview, and upon closer inspection of our own experience, we can see that there are two types of thoughts -
1) Thoughts which, at their ultimate conclusion, lead to experiences and ideas of unity and creativity, and;
2) Thoughts which, at their final conclusion, surmise that there is no sense of pervading creative intelligence in the Universe, a sense of hopelessness, negativity, ideas of separation and division, the idea that "I am a flop, therefore the Universe is a flop".
If you start to observe the nature of your thoughts you will see they fall into one of these two categories - those positive thoughts filled with creative ideas, possibilities, love and compassion for oneself and others fall into category 1. Those thoughts which berate ourselves and others, speculate about negative, disastrous outcomes and have their basis in fear, fall into category 2.
Thoughts which fall into category 1, bubble up from our truest, deepest selves, our true nature, Being itself. The source of all creative thought. These are thoughts worth entertaining, and in fact are often, if they feel charming, calls to action.
Category 2 thoughts indicate stress in the physiology, even outside of meditation. While we have stresses and 'samskaras' (impressions) still embedded in the nervous system and energy field, then we will experience a trigger, which produces a body sensation - such as fear, anger, sadness, guilt - and as the body experiences this sensation, the mind becomes active - just as in meditation - and we experience a bubble of accompanying, usually negating, thoughts. These thoughts, in someone who has a regular meditation practise, usually indicate the body is actually releasing some stress (even outside of meditation).
When you are regularly giving the body that deep rest, the overall state of your consciousness becomes increasingly de-excited. More than you perhaps realise. You may experience stress, or reaction, but very rapidly your body recovers. In a de-excited state, it cannot retain stress for long. It's equivalent to a little shiver of the nervous system as it throws off stress, and, as we cannot have a body actively releasing stress without an active mind as the two are one contiguous whole, we experience a bubble of thoughts. They are occurring as a result of what is happening in the nervous system.
An advanced meditator, someone who has been meditating for a while, and regularly chipping away at the bank of accumulated stress in the nervous system, may find that their thought activity is more indicative of the immediate collective consciousness - for example, the mind becomes busier and more active in a shopping mall, or quieter when they are alone or in nature. The nervous system is a pure reflection of the wider consciousness.
How do we quieten the mind?
The mind will spontaneously become quieter, a deeper pool of silence as we regularly meditate and release the stresses which are causing the thought activity. We cannot force the mind to be quiet, that forcing in fact creates more stress in the system. As in meditation, we can only allow the mind to spontaneously let go of all thinking when saturated with the ultimate bliss the layer of Being provides. To the extent we have awakened Being in our consciousness, our mind will become quiet, and the content of our thoughts will reflect that silent, layer of bliss - content based in creativity and unity.
How can we best respond to an active mind in the interim?
Here's my top 10 for approaching streams, or occasional bubbles of negating thought:
1) Meditate regularly: obvious! Start here.
2) Shine the light of Awareness: Once you know those thoughts are not true, and understand the process which triggers them, they immediately lose their power. They may be there, but they have no power over you.
3) Accept and allow: You are exactly where you're meant to be on the journey of your evolution. If you are having a lot of thoughts of this nature, and are regularly meditating, then you may be undergoing a period of increased release of stresses, the result of which will be a quieter mind over time. Resistance creates suffering, accept the thoughts are there, without engaging with them. "Ok, today is like this" can be a good little daily mantra, it means, today is like this, but not necessarily tomorrow, or even a few hours from now.
4) Don't engage, or act on these thoughts: The content of these thoughts are not the truth of your Being, the Universe itself. They indicate stress/stress release. If we buy into them, engage with them, think we are them, judge ourselves for the content of them and dig further into them, it simply extends the thinking and creates suffering. Note the thoughts, accept them, and then bring your awareness back to the present - what is there for me to be doing right now? What is my next right action in life? Perhaps taking a walk, changing up the scenery, or getting into nature can bring you back to a more grounded, true, perception. You can reject these thoughts and tell yourself "next!" until a thought arrives which is worthy of engagement - such as "well perhaps it's not all bad", "I'll do better next time".
5) Come into your senses: Bringing our awareness away from streams of thoughts and into the present moment can be very grounding - come to the senses and see what you are feeling, smelling, hearing and sensing.
6) Sense the unbounded: To the extent that it's available to you, to sense that deep inner unbounded silent state, you can place your awareness there and remind yourself that this is in fact the truth of your nature, and the thoughts are merely waves of energy that pass through, like clouds against the sky.
7) Come into the body: The negating thoughts occur as a result of the body releasing stresses in the system, which often occurs as sensations of emotion. Then the thoughts create a story in response to those often uncomfortable emotions, in an effort to resist feeling them. We can allow the emotions to move through by bringing our awareness away from the mind, and its story, and into the body and allowing that emotion to be felt. Where attention goes energy flows, this supports the release of the emotion and the mind will naturally calm and settle as the emotions move through. Emotions are waves of sensation moving through the nervous sysyem, we have often trained ourselves to be afraid of them, to be afraid to fully feel them - but what we resist, persists. We can feel that wave, surrender and allow it, and enjoy the ensuing calm, like the calm after a storm.
8) Water the flowers, not the weeds: If you're having a lot of negating thoughts, or 'weeds', and very few thoughts of the more creative nature, or 'flowers', then you really want to water those flowers and not the weeds. There is a story of a man, watering his garden who had a small patch of weeds. He was so focussed on them, he kept looking at them and complaining about them, that he forgot all about his beautiful flowers. While he was focussed on the weeds, he mistakenly watered them so much with the hose that quickly they overtook the whole garden and very few flowers were left. The moral is clear: if you have one flower, water it. If you pay less attention to the negating thoughts, and really engage with and water the life supporting thoughts, your flowers will grow and the weeds will, over time, lose their sustenance.
9) Learn to Round: Rounding is an advanced technique we use in Vedic meditation which combines a sequence of yoga asana, a short period of pranayama (breathing) and 20 minutes of meditation, followed by a 10 minute integration period (lie down) which both smoothes over periods of un-stressing and allows you to release more stress during meditation, thereby accelerating your progress. Rounding can be taught one-on-one, or in a group and is practised as part of all Vedic Meditation retreats. Once you have learned this, you can replace your meditation whenever you have time, or feel charmed to, with a round (it takes about 50 minutes to complete). Email me to schedule a session for instruction in rounding, or register for the next group rounding instruction session.
10) Correct the Intellect: Saturating your mind with conscious material daily acts as a reminder of the lack of truth in the negating thoughts, and serves to upgrade your intellect to match the hardware of your nervous system as it starts to expand. I recommend starting with my teacher Thom Knole's podcasts - The Vedic Worldview (available online or in the podcast app), books by authors such as Eckhart Tolle, Dr David Hawkins ("Letting Go"), Deepak Chopra and Oprah's Soul Sessions podcasts, or the Heal documentary available on Netflix. Placing your awareness once a day on conscious material can act as a daily reminder, outside of meditation. You can also join advanced knowledge courses such as Exploring the Veda, which deepens your intellectual understanding of consciousness, the process of expansion and your experience of it, and acts as a major upgrade for the intellect. See the Advanced Courses page for more information.
I hope this sheds some light on the nature of thinking and how we can move more frictionlessly, with greater acceptance, through periods of a busy mind.
Love and Jai Guru Deva*
Georgia x
*victory of light over darkness
