How to overcome the infliction of thinking and believing what we think is actually true.
Those who constantly talk (and if we listen, tend to repeat themselves), are just reaffirming their thoughts - given them strength that they are true.
All they are doing is in fact increasing the bias which makes it harder for them to see the truth.
I'm waking up to the fact that we are creating the problems we've already solved.
We have solutions without problems, and we set out to create problems we can solve.
Example:
If we have a solution to convert food waste into compost, then food waste is seen as a problem.
If we have a solution to convert sun to energy, then we turn our existing source of energy into a problem.
If we have a solution for time, than we have too much time on our hands.
Thoughts and ideas are little more than hypothesis. They are ideas about what we believe may be. We'll never know until we put action behind them. Action validates thought. The results we get will influence our future thoughts. It's only through action that truth can arise.
A bug in my own program is that I often stop short of full realization of an idea. I'll abandon it for something new.
We can think about doing it, but it's not until we do it that we live it. Until we live it can we ever truly know it. Arrogance is mistaking knowledge for action. I can tell you what it's like to teach someone how to do something, but until you teach that person, you will not know. Until you know yourself - until you've lived it - you can't teach it. One fatal flaw in our current higher education system is that it's predominately staffed by educators who have the knowledge, but lack the experience. It's the student's responsibility to test the knowledge to prove it's validity. Until we live it, it's only a concept. Concepts are flawed and exist only in the eye of the beholder. We have to assume that our ideas about things we haven't actually experienced are flawed. Experience on the other hand is what is real. The only things in life we truly know are the things we've personally experienced. Everything else is just a hypothesis. A guess. An assumption.
Even the idea of who we are is only a hypothesis until we've proven otherwise.
Try everything you don't think you're good at. Until you have evidence to the contrary (after several failed attempts), you don't know whether or not it's something you may be skilled at. Assume you are skilled at it (or can develop the skill needed to succeed) until you are proven otherwise.
Nobody is difficult, but our concepts of who they are make it so. Nothing is difficult in practice, it's only the concepts, thoughts, ideas, preconceived notions that make them appear so. 8UP (a tool similar to mind mapping) can be used to break down complex ideas.
Limits only exist in our mind. When we take ourselves into thought-space, we take ourselves into the past & future. We form concepts of the ability of ourselves our others in relation to an idea. It is in this practice that we leave the here-now, fail to see the limitless 'I Am.'
Come back to the wireframe of the self, What's running is what's here and now. What you experience is the truth, everything else (your thoughts of the past and future) are just ideas (and inherently flawed & limited).
The words you write (or type) become a vivid display of your thoughts. As such, the book you write becomes your visual thought canvas.
All thoughts are abstractions, inherently limited. The whole entails experience. Experience is not thought. Because thought pulls predominately from the past, it is limited to that experience and to what it can put into language. To experience the whole, the entirety of it all, we must stop attaching feelings to thoughts.
Life is not thought. Thoughts are only concepts and ideas about life. They can never be life itself. They can only describe it. Life is experience, and experience transcends thought. To live means to experience. Our purpose of living is to experience. Every living thing is experiencing as it lives. Only when it ceases to live does it become an idea, a thought, a concept. In other words, all thoughts are inanimate. But life is animated. We can think about doing it, but it's not until we do it that we live it. And not until we live it can we ever know it. I can tell you what it's like to teach someone how to do something, but until you teach that person, you cannot know. How can you teach other until you know? But as students, they must act from that knowledge to know it.
Until we live it, it's only a concept. Concepts are flawed and in the eye of the beholder. Experience on the other hand is what is real. The only things in life we truly know are the things we've personally experienced. Everything else is just a hypothesis.
The majority of fear in our life stems from concepts. We fear the unknown, yet the future is unknown. To live in fear of the future prevents us moving forward. We are burning vital CPU cycles our a time is winding down. Our own expiration is near regardless, so why fret about it? Our own death is imminent.
What programs are always running?
Which ones autoload when you boot up?
Which ones consume the most memory (thus slowing down the speed of other programs running)?
p. 53 -
We usually think we are controlling out thoughts, when in fact our thoughts are more often automatic reflexes. You only find out what the thought is after it comes out.
The question is: Can we become more aware of the 'thought framework' which is primarily reactive (reflexes)? As we become aware of the model, can we expand our capability to think?
Reflexes serve us until they become too rigid. Which over time they will. It's why addicts can't stop - in a sense, their brains are wired for addiction because synapse connection is so strong, it fails to see the flip side of their addiction.
In a sense, we establish a structure of thought over time that is based on
I'm also hearing about the impact of emotion on thoughts - which is essentially a stronger synapse
Experience. Perception. Thought. Emotion. These are the building blocks of your unique 'thought structure.'
What this all boils down to is that our thinking is predominantly driven from reflexes and by the time we see our own thoughts, the though already exists. So if you want to change your mind, you have to move further upstream and change your experiences and look at events from a different POV. Change how you perceive the world by becoming more aware of your automatic thoughts.
There's also an aspect of the brain seeking pleasure & avoiding pain - yet the two being co-dependent. If you are constantly experiencing pleasure, you'll eventually experience pain because pleasure can't exist without the pain. This might explain why even the most charmed in our society seem to have an endless amount of drama and suffering in their life.
In fact, it's even more so - they more pleasure they get, the more pain they experience.
His theory is that what we actually call 'thoughts' are essentially a system of reflexes.