All theological philosophical and psychological schools speak of the importance of thought. Most believe in the importance of changing one's thought to create a more pleasing life experience.
Phrases such as "As a man thinketh, so is he," and Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" are usually interpreted to mean that one's personal thought-taking influences one's being. The Power of Positive Thinking, and thousands of similar self-help books urge the reader to concentrate thought on the desirable - imagining wealth, and happiness - and to drop thoughts of lack and sorrow. Cognitive Psychology emphasizes the need to control and choose and deal with thoughts of one's past. Unfortunately, positive thinking theories give rise to beliefs about a very guilt-ridden "thinker" who has either not thought positively enough, or who is learning all too slowly to "think right."
More recently in the West, we find many self-help books referring to the importance of emptying the mind, and of escaping the chattering ego.
All of these thought controlling techniques can "work" to ease the picture for a while, but the easing is short-lived. Many practices urge one to achieve an altered state or peak experience. Once attained, these states remain goals to be reached whenever thought is right, or silenced. The altered state is often so alluring that one's energies are put into attaining it - to the detriment of everyday living. It becomes an ever-evasive 'high' that keeps the searcher and attainer searching and attaining. This personal thinker will never reach what he is searching for. Why? Because the personal thinker does not exist except as a supposition.
Metaphysical Science starts with the fact of one Consciousness, infinitely individualized and never subdivided. If One Consciousness is the fact, what is responsible for the millions of us who spend much time money energy and frustration on trying to experience that Oneness? What is responsible? Nothing other than the mistake, the supposition of subdivision - the supposition of a separate personality.
William Samuel's story of the Woodcutter and the King supplies a good illustration. The poor woodcutter spent his days making a meager living cutting wood and searching for food on the grounds of the huge castle. One day the King found him and told him that he had always been the rightful heir to the kingdom, and that all the while he had been cutting wood, he had been cutting his own trees on his own land. The woodcutter immediately saw that he had been thinking 'woodcutter' thoughts. Did he have to work with these thoughts? No. Did he have to drop these thoughts? No. Did have have to change his thoughts to better ones? No. All that was necessary was that he think 'King thoughts'. It was effortless because Kingness was his identity. Discovery of One's Identity makes clear that the only discovering that is done is done by Consciousness. SELF Discovery. SELF Uncovery!
"Reciprocal is a word for the Adorable One, Mind, never leaving itself to be something 'other.' ?" (Laird, Laird letter Jan 1981)
Personal thinking - 'Woodcutter thinking' is akin to looking at the scene, a huge castle and its magnificent grounds, through a glass darkly. The Woodcutter looked at his scene through a pane that distorted the true fact of himself. The pane of poverty was overlaid by another pane, that of duality. This pane was overlaid by the pane (pain) of resentment, perhaps. It could be that another pane of a belief of personality further darkened the glass through which he looked. Another pane (a thick dark one) could be the trying to deal with the ego. Do you see that his personal thinking appears as a 'pane in the glass?'
Who or what is doing the thinking? Personal thought tries to deny that one's own identity is the very illumination one seeks.
Do we pile pane upon pane to our sensing of Reality? Are we aware of the distortion that is our experience when we live the mistake of believing we think personally? Do we make our feeble attempts to 'be here now' or do we rest in the fact that the hereness and nowness of Being is what is being this that I call me?
Do we see that working with personal thinking is so unnecessary when all one has to do is acknowledge (be the acknowledgment of) the fact of One Consciousness doing all the thinking there can possibly be. It then becomes clear that one is nothing other than the very 'thinking' of Infinite Intelligence. This thinking is totally unconcerned with the imagined splotches of belief on the glass or with the glass itself, or with the supposed 'looker.'
One's kingly, now, here, identity is nothing other than the presencing of Consciousness enjoying Itself.
The 'big suppose' is thought is human
Improving slowly over time
The Fact is One Mind
Self-reflecting
Knowing
Thought must be Divine
