Lost in Thought

Just Be

"Everybody's talkin' at me
I don't hear a word they're sayin'
Only the echoes of my mind"

- "Everybody's Talking" by Bill Withers

Have you ever noticed how much unnecessary thinking we do? When we are driving around, in class, at work, or at home, we constantly think. Now, imagine the brain being a computer, although technically it is the ultimate super computer, what would happen if a computer was fed data nonstop, hour after hour and year after year? Eventually the computer will begin to overheat and slow down because of the input of excessive data, which causes an immense amount of stress on the computer. That is what happens to the brain when we, as spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle puts it, incessantly think. Vital energy is drained with constant thinking, especially if it's negative. Unfortunately, most of the time we think negative thoughts without ever really realizing it. We criticize and judge ourselves through the day, and the only peace we ever get is when we sleep. If we pay attention to the voice in the head, the thinker, that unconsciously drives us, we will notice that it never lets us be.

Constant thought causes stress. To make the voice go away we, unconsciously of course, excessively watch TV, go on Facebook, play sports, work out, eat, work, consume drugs and alcohol or what I just realized about myself, study. However, distracting ourselves from the internal voice by keeping ourselves busy does not fix anything since those habitual distractions are only momentarily successful. For example, have you ever indulged in chocolate, ice cream, or any other delicious treat to forget about a problem? Sure, treating yourself with food temporarily helps you forget about the problem, but it doesn't help you fix the problem. After the snack, the voice, which was moved temporarily to the back of the mind, makes its way back to the front and brings back the stress.

As I mentioned earlier, avoiding the voice, the constant talker, does not fix anything. The best thing to do is to be aware of the voice and know that it is not you. Tolle says that the voice in the head is the ego, the instrument that has taken over. The ego tries to keep itself alive through thought. We are not the ego. We are consciousness. What if the ego is the mind that has, over time, gotten too smart and has created a false reality in order to fool us into believing it to be the real one? For example, like in the movie The Matrix, the super computer is, in this case, the brain or ego that creates a system or false reality for us that keeps us busy, entertained, so we can be diverted from the truth.

Also like The Matrix, on occasion some special individuals, like Neo and Morpheus, are born into the system who find the truth and help reveal it. I believe that people such as Jesus and the Buddha are individuals who have escaped the false reality of the ego, have seen "the sun," as Neo and Trinity do at the end of the trilogy, and have brought forth knowledge of the lost, true reality into the false. The ego is afraid of its death because its only source of fuel and energy is our thoughts. That is why it doesn't want us to find out about the truth because it knows that once we do, it will be no more.

Even though I still need a lot of work on developing my awareness of thinking, I am glad that I am conscious of it now. Many people throughout history have lived their whole lives without ever being aware of consciousness, living only through the eyes of the ego. The one that judges, criticizes, blames, and complains about everything in life. Imagine approaching somebody or something without the judgements that are hardwired into the mind; the meeting would be genuine. You would meet people of different walks of life peacefully and attentively. Since your inner voice would be no more, your complete and full attention would be focused on that somebody or something. How beautiful that must feel.