Understanding Thought

Abstract

This paper focuses on an aspect of thought that appears to control the way we act and move through life. This thought, or set of thoughts, has been built up in each one of us over time. It includes one’s sense of self but for the most part is not something we are fully aware of. However, because this thought is essentially divisive, it is at the root of much conflict in the world, which means that it is imperative that we understand it and cease to be controlled by it. Such understanding, the paper argues, depends on a certain kind of observation of how this thought arises and directs us. Such observation cannot be based on the traditional duality of an observer and the observed - which is how we usually look - but needs, instead, to be of a kind where the observer and observed are one, which means where thought and cognition are absent. Such a state is one of heightened awareness where learning of a special and non-accumulative kind takes place. This learning is perception in the moment, which implies that what we learn today we can learn again tomorrow. Only in this state the paper argues can we be free of the constraints of the self, free of the psychological past and free of the conflict that that entails.