When Was the Last Time You Chose Your Own Thoughts?
Do you remember actually choosing to think rather than simply finding yourself in the midst of it? For most, thought is a completely involuntary action that we falsely believe we control. If thinking were truly a choice, we would be aware of when and where we chose to do it and what we chose to think about.
To suffer, we must think about how our experiences and circumstances feel. For those who reflect on this, it becomes clear that all suffering exists within our thoughts. It is in our thoughts that we worry about tomorrow, regret yesterday, feel lonely, and criticize ourselves.
The question is: if thoughts are involuntary, is our suffering avoidable? To explore the possibility of eliminating all suffering, we must first understand what thought is, what creates and fuels it, and then move towards a solution.
Understanding Thought
Thought is quite simple. As we go through life, we judge our experiences, labeling them as wanted or unwanted by creating polarized ideas about them. Polarized ideas mean that what we want is positive, and what we don't want is negative. We believe that if we can categorize the world into wanted and unwanted, we can achieve happiness by getting more of what we want and avoiding what we don't.
From a young age, we accumulate polarized ideas compulsively to seek and maintain our happiness. This accumulation is central to involuntary thought. Thought is essentially an internal dialogue that happens automatically to manage these ideas we are constantly consuming, adopting, and creating.
The more ideas we have, the more we think. Our minds, which operate as a complex system rather than a singular entity, ensure we consider the ideas we believe will bring and maintain happiness. The importance we assign to an idea dictates how much we think about it.
The Role of Self-Opinions
Our self-opinions are also ideas about how we could change ourselves to be happy. We have things we hate and want to avoid and things we wish we did more of. These personal opinions are often given high importance, causing our minds to focus on them frequently.
This is the basic nature of thought and why it's involuntary. It also explains why most thoughts involve worry, hope, desire, regret, and self-criticism—essentially, suffering. While not everyone suffers, most do because of the sheer number of ideas we hold and the nature of them, which we create unconsciously by judging almost everything.
The Solution
Thought is driven by ideas that we create unconsciously, and these ideas tend to create suffering. The solution lies in becoming more conscious and reducing the importance of our myriad ideas. By understanding that we create and fuel the problem, we can change everything.
The journey to observing and understanding thoughts is fascinating. The more we explore and understand ourselves, the more we see that our thoughts are not truly part of us and often hinder rather than help us. We believe that thinking is essential for functioning in the world, but this belief is misguided.
A New Path
By embarking on a journey to stop all thought and reveal the intuition that will naturally take over, we discover that thinking—and the suffering it brings—was never necessary. If you would like to join us on a journey that will transform your life forever, explore the Butterfly Program. Spend 30 days or more outside of your current life and reality to uncover peace, fulfillment, and magic.
