Stop Listening to Those Runaway Thoughts

Start paying more attention.

No matter our background, each of us is endowed with the ability to think and form thoughts. Those of us who can read need only open a book for the words to become thoughts in our minds. Likewise, people who never learned to read have no problem forming thoughts and participating in deep conversations that make sense. So thinking, per se, is not limited to words.

Today, I want to draw your attention to an unconditioned dimension that goes deeper than thought and to show you why we need to stop listening to the runaway thoughts in our head.

A Higher Dimension

In ancient teachings, it has been called the Christ within, The Holy Spirit, our inherent Buddha-nature. Whatever you call it, that is the dimension I want to talk about here.

I was reading an article by Mr. Eckhart Tolle, and he calls it simply consciousness.

Now, I’m far from being an expert, I’m merely an enthusiast of this kind of thinking. So, I will attempt to show you how I understand what I was reading, the way I understand the great man’s reasoning. All I can hope for is that my understanding of this makes sense to you.

Mr. Eckhart Tolle

In the article, he tells me that love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace would be hard to come through if it weren’t for this unconditioned dimension.

“Finding that dimension frees us and the world from the suffering we inflict on ourselves and others when the mind-made ‘little me’ is all we know. ‘Little me’ can run our lives.” ~Eckhart Tolle.

That ‘little me’ sometimes runs our lives when it goes unnoticed. And little, though it may be, it’s enormous in weight, momentum, and self-importance. It can easily drag us down.

Left unchecked that ‘little me’ will assure anyone, regardless of age and size that every thought that arises is of utmost importance. And it will continue nagging until we give it our undivided attention.

Now, this ‘little me’ is not an easy thing to ignore.

The human mind is an amazing ‘machine.’ It is smart — full of desire to know, understand, and control. It is a powerful tool that deserves credit for helping us understand complicated and multi-layered equations. We gotta give it that!

Only, very often, it tends to mistake its opinions and viewpoints as the indisputable truth of truths. It can become a terrible set back once it takes over our lives so effortlessly when we don’t even realize it’s happening.

Mr. Tolle is adamant about what he knows about ‘little me’ and more eloquent in his explanation and occasionally I find that his words make me want to pay attention.

Why Thinking is A Trap

In one way or another, we’re all born into families that add flavor to us, mold us, and influence who we become. In our family dynamics, we learn to behave in certain ways with family members.

Each family system and its dynamics are unique, although there are some common patterns.” ~StrongBonds.

These early influences play important parts in our self-perception. How we see others, how we interpret the world, and how we think.

And sometimes this kind of unique thinking traps us into prisons pointing us repeatedly into one viewpoint. Like dogmas.

I, for example, used to believe in a mantra that had me thinking that happiness was something to attain in the future, after going through a bout of hardships. It was the only way, my culture told me. But that was wrong.

What we need to understand about mantras, dogmas, and such is that the thinking behind them is only one of many possible prospectives on any given topic, be it a behavior, a situation, or a belief.

When we are immersed in the viewpoint ‘little me’ conceptualizes as truth, we are accepting it from within and avoiding what really is. In so doing, we’re avoiding the now for the image that is playing compulsively in our thinking mind.

Dogmas, be they religious, political, scientific, and such, give us a perceived sense of security. They make us feel that we are ‘in the know’ and when we feel like we are ‘in the know,’ we feel superior to them. This is the danger that dogmas pose.

But we humans thrive on feeling superior to all other creatures that populate our planet. On any given day, ‘little me’ will make us believe that what we do is what is right for ourselves.

But reality is not a separate entity made up of us and them and fragmented bits and pieces of this and that. Reality is one unified whole, interwoven; never existing in or by itself. We are all interconnected — religiously, politically, scientifically, globally, naturally.

Still, why is it that dogmas appeal to us? It could be because our thinking mind tells us that we do not know enough and it urges us to let it teach us the things we need to know in order to really be more superior than them.

What About Wisdom?

In comes Wisdom. You might know this already, but wisdom is NOT a product, nor a by-product of thought.

“The deep knowing that is wisdom arises through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention.” ~Eckhart Tolle.

Wisdom is attention. Attention is intelligence.

Give attention, not to your thoughts which only point to one perspective, but to reality; the reality that makes us recognize that nothing exists in itself or by itself.

Thoughts exist in delusion, in separating us from them; attention exists in a reality where separation is dissolved.

“Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.” ~Mr. Tolle.

Not everything we learn in our families of origin is distorted or a trap. Neither is everything we learn from our culture. So together with that fact and the knowledge of this unconditioned dimension that goes deeper than thought, let’s help ourselves.

Stop listening to the runaway thoughts in our heads. Stop that compulsive thinking; thinking fragments reality. Pay more attention; seek intelligence. Call forth consciousness because we’re not separate from them. We are them.

The realm of consciousness is vaster than thought can grasp.” ~ Mr. Tolle.

THANK YOU FOR READING I Wish You Miracles.