most thoughts are neurotic

Most thoughts are neurotic

We'd be better off without them

Have you noticed how the mind keeps thinking all day long, from the moment we wake up till the moment we sleep again. For most of us, the lived experience of the day really focuses on our thoughts, our endless thoughts. Have you ever tried to take a step back and look at your thoughts as objectively as possible? Have you ever asked the question, are they really serving me? Most thoughts are not serving us at all, in fact, quite the opposite.

Most thoughts are ineffective. They're not leading to some great new understanding of life. They are not actually determining our actions. Have a look at your own patterns of thought and you will see, a lot of them are very repetitive. Many may be just whinging about life, complaining in your own mind without necessarily needing to be voiced.

Thoughts are often negative. One of the main purposes of the thinking mind is to look for problems. And of course if we look, we will find problems. But most problems that we find are not ones we are actually going to do anything about. But they create this energy of disappointment, negativity, a sort of mood, that rather spoils the taste of life.

And if you are really being honest when you look at your own thoughts, you will probably see that most of them are neurotic. They're really not that much based on reality. Coming rather from our deep fears and negative beliefs, about life and about ourself. And these neurotic thoughts harm us. Most significantly they distract us from enjoying the moment.

Take this moment now: I happen to be looking at some beautiful yellow flowers, but if I am busy with my attention on my thoughts about something else, then of course I don't really see the flowers. I don't feel them. I miss that sense of beauty. It is only if my mind is quiet, if there are some gaps between my thoughts, that I can really feel the flowers, feel the beauty. And that feeling of beauty does not need words. It does not even need the word beauty. It is a direct feeling, coming from sensing, perceiving the flowers, without thinking about them, without thinking in words. And what is true of beauty is also true of love. When we are feeling love, within us, it too does not need words, and words will merely get in the way of us feeling the love. So if you really want to feel love, then again it is necessary for some gaps to come in the thinking. And what is true of beauty and love is also true of truth. It's strange, isn't it? We tend to associate truth with words. Truth has to be written down, spoken. But it is not so. Truth is also felt, and it's felt in the moment without the need of words.

And these three aspects of life are fundamental: truth, beauty, and love. Only when we can really feel these, unburdened with thoughts, only then can we really say that we are alive. And if we do not feel these, then we have missed life.

So take a look at your own thoughts. The first step is to acknowledge that most of them are neurotic. And even the ones that are not neurotic are not really serving you in any way. The more we can acknowledge this, the more chance there is of gaps opening up between the thoughts. And it is when the mind is silent, not thinking, that we really live life, that we become the truth, the beauty, the love.