THE LAST FRONTIER–THOUGHTS

Man has conquered the moon and the depth of the ocean but he has not learned how to conquer himself. The last frontier for man is his own thoughts. Without conquering his thoughts he has accomplished nothing in his lifetime.

To be able to conquer thoughts you must firstly know what thoughts are and where does it come from. For most of us we accept the thoughts we have and do nothing about it. We become slaves to our thoughts taking us to places that we wish or do not wish to go.

Let us try to pin down the root of thoughts. When babies are born they have no thoughts. Whatever they knew in the past is erased from mental memory and kept in their consciousness. Babies observe and listen to sounds and they soon learn to identify the images that they see based on the input that they get from people who provide them. This goes on continuously until that baby is able to formulate his own opinion of what he has learnt. So thoughts begin when you put words to the image you see and the sounds you hear. This is then captured and stored in your data bank or memory bank only to be recalled at will or as random thoughts that surface without you having any control of. For most people they are slaves to their own thoughts not being able to control what they think.

As I mention in my earlier blogs the five sense as avenues to your conscious mind and they are passive to any labels that you give to it. Hence the eyes sees but it does not know what it sees, the ears hear but it does not know what it has heard and the nose smells but is does not know the scent. Once you have given a name to whatever the five senses identify it becomes a recognizable image in your conscious mind and has a name to it.

Now that we have determined what thoughts are and where it comes from maybe we can then do something about it. Before that let’s look at the “mind”. Mind and thoughts are two different things. The mind is a bundle of thoughts so if there are no thoughts there is no mind. Practitioners of deep meditation are able to slow down the thought process to a stage where they are able to be in a state of in-between two thoughts, where no thoughts exist, hence no mind. Some are able to experience light and be in the light without questioning what it is.

When Christ said “be still and know that I am God” that is what he is referring to.

For only in the stillness beyond self do you know Me as I Am.

Hence for a seeker on the spiritual path, the last frontier that he needs to conquer are his own thoughts.

In the next few blogs we shall discuss how to control your own thoughts.