Imprisoned by thoughts
Have you ever realized your thoughts? When you embed your sensations in the words of a language they become thoughts. These sensations are about the world around you hence these thoughts are the gateways for this world to enter YOU. This world intrudes upon you through your thoughts.
Sit comfortably and observe your thoughts. These are either the memory of your past or desires of your future. Thoughts do not exist in present. In the present, only the existence exists. You should understand this thing.
Memories are the recollection of your that past, which is already dead in time. The future has not taken birth so far. Your desire to become rich or attain some goal in future is only a speculation. The future is unseen. And hence it may or may not be according to your thinking. It is your own experience that nature usually does not repeat itself. It is not going to repeat in future also. By concentrating on your future you are spending your time for something which is not going to happen.
Therefore neither your past nor your future is alive. The alive entity is You. You are alive here and now. Your thoughts are about everything but not about ‘here and now’. The existence of your thoughts does not coincide with your existence. Thoughts are dragging you to a dead end; to an end which is not alive.
Observe the flow of thoughts. They are always directed outwardly from you. Thoughts drain you out of you. They create a vacuum inside you after you are totally drained out. This vacuum is then filled by the thoughts of the world. When you sit, you find thoughts of office, spouse, children, neighbours, high school camping, strategies to overcome the growth of colleagues and the thoughts of every thing. But you are nowhere in your thoughts. Thought are never about you.
When you remember your past days or make plans of your promotion etc. a number of people understand that they are thinking about themselves. But this is an illusion only.
You are a living being. There are two ways to know yourself. One way is to know about you, as others do. They know you through your name, parentage, education, address, family, religion, sex, caste and several other informations about you. The second way is to know of you (not knowing about you). This is the subjective way to know of you. You know of you because of your very existence of you and not through the information provided by others.
When you think or plan a strategy about your promotion, you act on the basis of informations about you and the post and the person who is vacating that post and also the informations about other competitors in the race. All information here is only objective. You put yourself amidst the information and weigh the probability of promotion, in the same way as you are putting others in those informations. Through this thought process you reduce your being to a mathematical problem and solution. Your thoughts make you do all this. Now it is that mathematical problem in your thoughts which you mistakenly assume as being yourself. It is not you in your thoughts but it is that mathematical problem which you are mistakenly identifying as you. Thoughts are never about you.
Thoughts need not to be about you. The reason is simple. You are present now and here. You are in existence now and here. There is no need for the thoughts being about you. Thoughts are about the perceptible objects. You are not a perceptible object for you. You are the perceiver. You do not perceive about you. You need not seek any evidence of your existence. You know your existence without any proof; because you are you; because it is you who exists. This existence is yours.
Now again reappraise these thoughts. You occasionally boast of your thoughts. Some people praise you because of your thoughts. Some argue that your thoughts should be chaste and serene. But no one bothers to know if these thoughts are yours. If you say that these are your thoughts then this is a new illusion. You test it yourself if you can command your thoughts.
Sit and try to regulate the flow of your thoughts. Just try to channelize them. Try to focus your thoughts, say, on your spouse. Soon you find that you have thoughts about everything but of your spouse. Your thoughts slip away from your spouse. Again try to keep your thoughts away a particular object, say, your dog. Soon you realize that the thoughts are again encircle your dog. You try your thoughts to take away from your dog but they come again and again around and about the dog. Thoughts are like untamed beasts. They are not in your control rather you are very much in their control. Therefore your statement that your thoughts are yours is not true. However it may be true to say that you are of your thoughts.
You have unveiled your thoughts to some extent (sufficient for the purpose of this article). Your thoughts originate from perceptible objects, they oust you of you; they fill inside you the garbage of dead past and unborn future; your thoughts do not belong to you and they are not of you (don’t confuse by “of you” for “about you”); your thoughts are like un-tethered horses without any of your control over them. All your thoughts are random, flowing and turbulent.
These thoughts are not under your control. They are not of you. These thoughts are not ‘yours’. These thoughts are beyond your power. Rather you are of these thoughts. Moreover, they control you. You are completely filled with these thoughts. You cannot live without thoughts. These thoughts are swaying you in random directions in a random fashion. You are flowing in your thoughts. You are helpless before these thoughts.
These thoughts are not only overshadowing you in your awakened state but they have entered your sleep also. While with eyes opened, you have hypertension. While trying to close your eyes you have insomnia. Your thoughts have incapacitated you. You want to do but are not able to do. Your thoughts have made you pathetic.
Now you are captive of your thoughts; a prisoner imprisoned in the prison of thoughts.
Being a conscious being you need freedom. This freedom can be achieved only through the freedom from the thoughts. There are two steps in freedom.
• First is the realization of your captivity and then
• the second is your efforts to get free from the captivity
If you have realized the imprisonment of thoughts, then adopt the second course and write to Pratap Shreyas at his website lightinlife.com to know the right efforts to get freedom from the imprisonment of thoughts. But if still you have some ambiguity in realization your imprisoned state then you better write to Pratap Shreyas at his website lightinlife.com about the ambiguities and get them cleared.
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