Awakening to the Dream, or, Why I'm Hanging My Thoughts Out to Dry

I've been reading some unusual books recently. These are the kind that turn my brain inside out and hang my thoughts out to dry.

It's quite liberating, really.

Here's an example:

I just completed reading Awakening to the Dream: The Gift of Lucid Living by Leo Hartong.

Please note that the sub-title says lucid living, not lucid dreaming. I mistyped it when I first wrote it here because it's so easy to jump to an assumption about what the book is about. The book is about being awake. It's a brief but eloquent book about Advaita, which is the philosophy of non-duality.

Let me give you a small head spinning taste from the book:

"If you watch your mind, you will see that thoughts arise of their own accord. Please, do not simply accept or reject this. When you honestly observe and investigate, it will become clear that you are not the thinker of your thoughts."

Later in this book he says this:

"...ask yourself what your next thought will be and see if you can know it in advance."

I don't know about you, but I have no idea what my next thought will be.

Not ever.

I mean, never.

They just appear.

Once they pop into my awareness, of course, I can judge them, act on them, dismiss them, argue with them, wait for a better one, and so forth. The thoughts become the chatter in my awareness. They're entertaining sometimes. Other times, not.

With mental toughness, I can choose the thoughts that best serve me. (I feel sorry for the people who don't know mental toughness or haven't read my book, The Attractor Factor. They must be at the mercy of their thoughts, which drive them to do -- or not do -- all sorts of things.)

But even as I watch and choose my thoughts after they appear, new thoughts --- which I can't predict --- keep coming.

So my question is this:

Where are they coming from?

You can say thoughts come from your unconscious, subconscious, self-image, mind, or something else, but aren't all of those labels just more thoughts?

From what I understand after reading this marvelous little book, thoughts are simply and magically part of the unfolding of the divine play called Life.

In order to find peace, we want to be the observer of the thoughts.

Not the judge of the thoughts; just the observer of them.

Judging the thoughts is yet another thought.

This is why my favorite T-shirt says, "Meditation is not what you think."

Think about it.

Better yet, don't.

Ao Akua,

Joe
www.mrfire.com

PS - Wait till I tell you what non-duality has to say about money! Stay tuned.

PPS - Now you know why I call this blog Beyond Marketing.