Thought Anatomy

Since the title of this whole Blog revolves around the idea of thoughts, it is only befitting that I try to reach an understanding of what thoughts are.

I have thought about this issue for a while. I have wondered about its relevance to my happiness. I have tried playing with my thoughts and I have failed in controlling them. I have also put effort into disregarding them only to fall into them again and again and time after time. They were only becoming stronger. I probably thought too hard about them. ☺

My decision to start this Blog was spontaneous. I am not the king nor queen of control. I have been known to make hasty decisions but I can safely say that my life choices have so far mostly had good results. Maybe they have and maybe I have learned to assume. Maybe I am not naturally inclined to regret. Or maybe I’m just good at management. Whatever it is, a thought I experienced instantly translated into this Blog, which in turn will translate into other things. A thought spawns generations of material and immaterial manifestations.

So why worry about this? What’s important about those thoughts? If I examine them, will I be considered as taking a backdoor into psychoanalysis? The answer is no, because it’s not what a thought is about that I am concerned with here. It’s what a thought is. What is this thing, really? It’s treated as nothing but it actually has the capacity to move mountains. Literally. Look at the thought of Dubai. Look at the thought of Beirut. Look at the thought of the Middle East. Look at the thought of fear. The thought of fear for example causes knee-jerk reactions, which cause more thoughts of fear, which cause sentiments of hatred and aggression and interact with stupidity to instigate violence, which can cause the whole world to bear the weight of collective killing sprees. Thoughts are extremely powerful.

What are those entities?

Let’s start with perceptions about thoughts. Thoughts are perceived as occurring involuntarily. In other words, we do not hold people accountable for their thoughts, but only for their actions. However, there does seem to be a continuum starting with thoughts and ending with action along which different people choose different points to start to credit or blame people for what they are observed as planning to do. It is difficult to pin down the exact point where a thought begins or ends.

So thoughts are involuntary. We do not create them. However, after a thought is born it seems to develop the capacity to trap its owner into either running with it or fighting it. It actually appears to want the person experiencing it to do so because that is how a thought reproduces. It’s as if those entities have a life of their own which they seem to be working hard to preserve. If you run with them or fight them, they end up growing and multiplying. Many thoughts interacting with each other can generate even more thoughts, they can give birth to an idea or ideas, or they can lead to fixation.

There it is again that two-times-four letter F word. Fixation. How does one little unidentified object of a thought become that dreaded fixation? Personally, I have found that when I toy with a thought, when I resist it, or when I try hard not to acknowledge it, it can turn into fixation. From meditation I know that flirting with a thought and fighting it can have the same effect. A thought lets you fight it only to multiply itself. It also lets you play with it for the same result. The only way you can get rid of a thought is to just watch it pass by, acknowledging it, accepting it, seeing it for what it is. But what is it, really? What do we know about it?

A thought is an unidentified body of energy that seems to be present somewhere in the area of the upper part of the head but with its weight spanning between the chest and that part of the head and affecting the whole body. It also has the potential of causing something to happen outside the body. In fact it can be argued that any thought, no matter how small will eventually materialize somehow in the domain outside the body. Take this a bit further and we can start seeing everything around us as being in the nature of a thought.

We also know that a thought can be pleasant, annoying, insignificant, worthwhile, or a total waste of time. It can make you lose sleep, develop unwanted feelings, understand or misunderstand the world around you, and develop intentions and actions. A thought can stop you from thinking right.

A thought can lead to ‘good’ or ‘bad’ actions or states of mind. Therefore a thought is not intrinsically good or bad. A thought perceived as good may develop into what’s perceived as a bad fixation and a thought perceived as bad may materialize as what's perceived as a good idea or a fine product. Look at religious fundamentalism and take a whiff of blue cheese.

If we delve into our thoughts, some claim we would be able to paint a better picture of our minds but it’s a picture we may never get to see finished. If we don’t delve into our thoughts, the same may happen. A thought, therefore, is not inherently capable of explaining anything.

The existence of thoughts, however, can. It points to a source that’s producing them. They are produced as neutral, tasteless, and shapeless entities, which we can use to project any state of mind we want on or to fuel any result we desire. Regardless of what a thought is or what it’s about, we know that it is nothing but the expression of a magnificent source that is beyond being called good, or bad. It is non-judgmental and it cannot be judged. It is clear but not quite easy to see. It is to be accepted, but not embraced. It is neither to be rejected nor defended. We would be aware of it, if it weren’t for those thoughts.