Focusing on the Process of Thinking
Thoughts, not fate, lead us to where we are now and determine our future. Basic to metaphysics, the mind is the foundation of everything. Our physical world, fueled by underlying dreams and imaginations, is manifested by thought, individually and collectively. By recognizing our thoughts as they arise, we can more clearly chart the reality we desire.
The Process of Thinking
Waking Reality & Dreams are Symbolic Languages
Our modern society “knows” the mind to be separate and distinct from the physical world, and similarly sees dreams as random images and sounds flying about the sleeping mind. We who study metaphysics know the waking world, just like dreams, is an illusion. Modern society has it wrong. Our waking world is a construct of “mind,” made of the stuff of dreams, all founded in “mind.” We are thus wise to understand waking reality and dreams similarly, both as a communicative process with a higher purpose than it so seems. Whether dreaming or in waking, we perceive and interact with “symbols,” not real objects (for real objects don’t actually exist), and all that we see and encounter and experience should be perceived as a communicating of ideas.
Waking and Dreaming Differences
Our waking world is reliably stable and predictable, whereas our dreaming experience is in a constant state of change as we may perhaps watch people and objects transform and appear before our dreaming eye. The waking experience thus gives the appearance of a solid concrete living space, yet underlying it is an elementary fluidic state (dreaming and formlessness) offering unlimited possibilities to a mind that is stable and disciplined. If we can apply the dreaming mind to waking reality, we can free ourselves from the prison of an entrapping physical world.
The mind is the Elusive Treasure
We can better understand waking reality by redirecting our waking focus away from the experienced objects, which are not real yet seem real and focus our mind on the process of thinking. We can do this within our modern-day fast-paced daily living experience, hurrying about doing things and going places. It is a matter of training the mind by learning to focus on the process from moment to moment, for the result is always temporal and effectively is not real. In understanding the process, not fixated on a result, we will find the true treasures, for the mind itself is all that we have, and the mind can give us all that we want.
A Method for Focusing the Mind
Our “classroom” begins in the morning when we awaken from sleep. When a recognizable thought occurs, like “I have to get up,” we think back to the beginning of the thought and imagine the process of why the thought arose. Was it spontaneous or did I initiate the thought? Is this thought helpful? In this example, it probably is, because we need to get up in the morning. But we don’t need to think about getting up, we merely get up. Whether the mind thinks the words “I’m getting up” or we just get up without thinking the words, there was a mental process where the mind determined it time to get up and the body, knowing the mind’s intent, began the mechanics of getting out of bed. This, whether imagined in verbal thought or merely accomplished intuitively, is what I define as “the process of thinking.” It is a process that never stops; we think something at some level of thought and acts on the thought or let the thought pass. These small steps, combined, build into events that become narrative over time — the stories of our lives — and define who we are and what we will become.
Shaping Our Destinies
Training our minds so that we focus on the process, not the result, we will begin to better see that our reality facing us is guided by and builds upon our earlier thoughts. Training the mind is not easy at first. Effecting to make thought itself our focus, we will quickly forget as familiar repetition, and emotive wants to steer us. We will progress through the day, hardly realizing how we are shaping the day and unconsciously mapping our futures. But if we start now, recognizing our thoughts as they enter our head, and if we return to this process each time, we remember that we have forgotten it, we will see the gaps between lapses in thought grow shorter. Eventually, in perfect harmony between mind and body, our every thought will be recognized, considered, and acted upon when we deem it proper. In the process we will be taking control of our own life and destiny, becoming less susceptible to outer world influences.
Focusing on the process of thinking, we will begin to become aware of and feel our world is created, supported, by our mind, continually, perpetually, and congruent with the minds of the others who surround us.
All the world a mental construct, our thoughts carefully crafted at superficial and at deep levels of the mind, we will better shape both verbal thoughts of what we say and think and deeper inner non-verbal thoughts intuitively and unconsciously shaping our world, giving us greater clarity in finer detail, our every moment steered more precisely by our own hand. We will more control our future presents in this world, and our temporal natures should fall away as we see the illusion to be no longer necessary.
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About the Author
Arthur Telling has written numerous stories and articles on religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. His article, “A Different Jesus Message” appeared in the Nov. 2011 AMORC Rosicrucian Digest. Telling is author of eight books, including his newest release: “And the Cock Crows: How Rome Buried the Jesus Message.” His website: www.arthurtelling.com
