Spiritual teachers tend to say one has to give up wanting. Give up on wanting certain life, and wanting certain achievements and goals in your life. When there is no want in you, what drives you forward? What makes you want to do anything? Anything including growing as a person? (or should I say diminish as a person?)
These days I have had three "oh... I see" -moments. The thoughts or realizations that caused these are: it seems that thinking works very much the same way as muscles, experience is what turns knowledge into understanding, and emotions attach themselves to ideas (or something like that).
Got some nerve?
It appears to me that thinking works very much the same way as nerves in relation to muscles. I have known for some time now, that which you give attention to tends to grow. This also goes for the thoughts in your head. The more you think about something, the bigger it gets. If you teach your thoughts to move a certain way, like raising your hand a certain way... the more often you do it, the more you learn to do it without an effort. So when you do it enough, your nerves have learnt to do it and keep doing it without attention. You suddenly think that way, always raise your hand that certain way - and basically repeat it like a monkey. When you realize that you need to change something, those thoughts or the way you raise the hand, it won´t happen easily. You need to train yourself to the new. Keep doing it the hard way, experience doing it, until finally it becomes your new standard.
So my question is... how much can you really rely upon thinking in your life? Is something so stiff going to be you eyeglass into the world? Is that really the best tool for you to explore the world, live your life and make the big decisions in your life? How lame is that!
Turning knowledge into wisdom - experiences
I used to think that since I "know" how things work, that is all I needed. Now however I have learned the hard way that there are some things in life that you´ll never understand unless you experience them. It doesn´t matter how well you know something or have much knowledge about something, unless you understand it with every cell in your body. Knowledge doesn´t have much power on your actions unless it has turned into wisdom. And wisdom can be only gained through understanding. And understanding often requires insight through experience.
When they say that "you need to experience the world" I do believe they are right. Experience is not always required, but I have noticed that the most fundamental changes in me has sprung from experiences. Maybe that explains why there is so much shit in the world happening even though we all do know better?
Emotional behaviour
The eternal dilemma we humans seem to have is the B of sense and sensibility / heart and rationality. The B here stands for both battle and balance. I have noticed that emotions attach themselves into thoughts and ideas. They are the in-the-moment reflection of your thoughts in your body. I find this a little weird system, probably just because I don´t fully understand it yet.
A problem occurred to me: how do you separate emotions from intuition? And how much should one let emotions affect their actions and decisions? For as I understand, most people base their actions on their feelings. Feelings are strongly attached to the experiencing of things, and if experience turns into wisdom... what is the relation between feelings and wisdom? And intuition?
This is where my mind boggles me. What do you base your actions on? What should you base your actions on? If both mind and heart are both unreliable in guiding you through life -> what is left? If you need to remove the obstacles (thoughts and emotions) from the way to see (or experience) that something deep, you have to be willing to take a free fall. Free fall into nothingness. The space of no-space where nothing is guiding you. Is that safe? Is it dangerous? What if you fail? Can you become mentally damaged for good for trying? It´ll be like "thank you trying and better luck in your next life". I have seen and heard so many sad stories where the free fall has failed miserable. The spiritual playground is full of examples of people who have let go of too much and too soon.
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And wow! After all this free flow of thoughts I seem to be able to close the circle on this post, to my great surprise. Want is the element that gives you direction in life. Without want there is a free fall of direction. When neither of these options seem good itself, the B for battle seems like a lose-lose -situation. The B for balance attaches you to both options, which really isn´t then a free fall at all. What is in the grey area here, hello?!?
This is such a classical example of the dilemmas I face these days. When there is simply no right answer to be found. You should take a free fall, but it cannot really be a free fall if you want to succeed safely. There is not way around it. My mind is unable to manage this puzzle, so the answer must come from some place else. A place that is not a slave to these concepts of mind.
I mean, think about it! You need to think to come to the conclusion and thinking doesn´t get you anywhere. This is the greatest joke of all time! Plus thinking doesn´t give any clue of what is that something that does. You´d have to let go, but that might just bring... well, the most unthinkable results.
...what can I say? Life is quite absurd when you think about it. :D
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