Why watch thoughts? Because when we do something wonderful emerges to take its place. I ran across a quote from David Hawkins that says this better than anything I have ever heard. He says, “It is not necessary to know about the Self but simply to become it by letting go of the non-Self.”
When we practice Witness Thought Transformation we literally watch the non-Self melt away. We are not thought – we are the Self that remains when thought dissolves into awareness.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
My Arguement with J. Krishnamurti
Oh my gosh, what am I thinking? Arguing with J. Krishnamurti?
Here is my beef with the old sage. Actually it is a point of contention I have with most of eastern, new age, new thought – er thinking. Here is what Krishnamurti says:
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.
Okay, so what is the problem with what he is saying? First off let me state categorically that I agree with everything that he says. It is the absolute truth. So where’s the issue? My issue comes in the first sentence: “When a man becomes aware of the movement of his thoughts.” This sort of statement has been made in various forms for thousands of years. So what’s the issue?
The issue is so obvious that we never question it. What exactly is the movement of thought? More precisely; what is thought itself? This is never explained. In fact, it is left to the ego-mind of the reader to fill in the blank. This turns out to be a very dangerous thing. The role of the ego is to trick us into thinking we “get it” when we don’t really get it. In the process, the ego becomes spiritualized and then we are pretty much lost forever.
The key to understanding thousands of years of eastern thought and spiritual teaching is to confront the question what is thought? And, in Krishnamurti’s case, how do we become aware of its movement? For without this little gem of truth, the rest of what he is saying is not only irrelevant to our growth but dangerous fodder for the ego-mind.
This is where my work comes in. A number of years ago I made a startling discovery that produced and almost immediate awakening in my clients visiting me in my therapy office. Today I call that teaching Witness Thought Transformation™ and it is an amazingly simple practice that makes the movement of thought and the mind obvious. And I don’t just mean in the setting of meditation or some spiritual practice. I mean walking around in everyday life.
Our new age culture is full of people who think they understand what Krishnamurti is saying. This is intellectual understanding. But the fruit of actualizing this revelation comes in the form of better relationships, experiencing joy even when there are problems, and a personal quality of life that others enjoy about us. If we are instead still in the drama and the struggle then clearly there is no awareness of the movement of thought.
Here is my beef with the old sage. Actually it is a point of contention I have with most of eastern, new age, new thought – er thinking. Here is what Krishnamurti says:
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.
Okay, so what is the problem with what he is saying? First off let me state categorically that I agree with everything that he says. It is the absolute truth. So where’s the issue? My issue comes in the first sentence: “When a man becomes aware of the movement of his thoughts.” This sort of statement has been made in various forms for thousands of years. So what’s the issue?
The issue is so obvious that we never question it. What exactly is the movement of thought? More precisely; what is thought itself? This is never explained. In fact, it is left to the ego-mind of the reader to fill in the blank. This turns out to be a very dangerous thing. The role of the ego is to trick us into thinking we “get it” when we don’t really get it. In the process, the ego becomes spiritualized and then we are pretty much lost forever.
The key to understanding thousands of years of eastern thought and spiritual teaching is to confront the question what is thought? And, in Krishnamurti’s case, how do we become aware of its movement? For without this little gem of truth, the rest of what he is saying is not only irrelevant to our growth but dangerous fodder for the ego-mind.
This is where my work comes in. A number of years ago I made a startling discovery that produced and almost immediate awakening in my clients visiting me in my therapy office. Today I call that teaching Witness Thought Transformation™ and it is an amazingly simple practice that makes the movement of thought and the mind obvious. And I don’t just mean in the setting of meditation or some spiritual practice. I mean walking around in everyday life.
Our new age culture is full of people who think they understand what Krishnamurti is saying. This is intellectual understanding. But the fruit of actualizing this revelation comes in the form of better relationships, experiencing joy even when there are problems, and a personal quality of life that others enjoy about us. If we are instead still in the drama and the struggle then clearly there is no awareness of the movement of thought.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Conference Call
Saturday's Conference Call set a record for us. Not only did we have a lively group on the call, but we had an overwhelming number of people who asked for the download. So here is a link to download the call!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Mastering Thought
The Buddah said, “All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world.”
Too many in our day have totally misunderstood what the Buddah is saying. What he is pointing to are the thoughts that are already there. But the ego mind wants to take this principle and rather than do the work of cleaning up the mind, it wants a new Cadillac or relationship, or more money so we need to learn the “Secret.”
This is not the truth at all. The Buddah says, “If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.” “We are what we think. A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” So the emphasis is to purify the mind, not layer goals onto an already polluted mind.
Too many in our day have totally misunderstood what the Buddah is saying. What he is pointing to are the thoughts that are already there. But the ego mind wants to take this principle and rather than do the work of cleaning up the mind, it wants a new Cadillac or relationship, or more money so we need to learn the “Secret.”
This is not the truth at all. The Buddah says, “If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.” “We are what we think. A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” So the emphasis is to purify the mind, not layer goals onto an already polluted mind.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A Stroke of Insight
Every now and then something really important appears on the internet. Sometimes it takes me a long time to find it. But when I do, I want to share it. You must watch this video and then think how it applies to Witness Thought Transformation. Click the title and have your life changed!
All my best,
Mark
All my best,
Mark
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Buddhists Blunder
There is a wide spread belief that Buddhists can do no wrong. This latest bunch of violence aimed at Tibetan liberation is wrong headed and potentially exposes Lama Buddhism as a fraud. But not so fast! The Dalai Lama has stepped up to the plate and shown wisdom in denouncing any form of violence. In fact he has threatened to resign if the nonsense doesn’t stop.
So what is going on here? Should we all want social justice? Don’t we have the right to fight for world peace? If you want to live from your ego, of course you have all kinds of rights. This reminds me of that well worn phrase; “Be the Change.”
Being the change means changing from the inside out. It does not mean rushing to the Chinese border and having a bloody confrontation with their army.
Shame on those Buddhists. They should know better!
Monday, March 03, 2008
The Super Bowl of Life: Go Deep, Go Long
Yes, this is inspired by the Giant’s Super Bowl win. They started the season with losses and came into the playoffs as tremendous underdogs. But they won. We think of going deep and going long as tactics used to win football games. Having a running game is important, but these days it usually serves to set up the passing game. So every team must be able to go deep and go long to be a serious threat.
Life is very much like that. In order to win, we must go deep and stay at a depth for a long time. Today, many of us are confusing money, success, and achievement with depth. When I tell people that they need to go deep and go long, I am often told that the message is “off-putting.” Few want to answer the call to depth. Many of us have confused depth with being very serious about our superficiality.
So I wanted to put this going deep into perspective. Perhaps some sobering facts might serve to motivate.
Every year over two thousand children, most under the age of five, die as a result of child abuse. 18% of us are alcoholics or alcohol abusers while 8% are drug users. 816,000 of us attempt suicide every year and about 33,000 of us succeed. If ever there was a case for going deep, those statistics tell it all. But I could go on. I could go on to the divorce rate, teen pregnancy, and a depressing number of other topics.
The bottom line is that the world we live in is not in good shape. It is not in good shape because people are acting out their pain. We lie, murder, we are greedy, judgmental, intolerant, materialistic. By the way, the murder rate is about 5.7 for every 100,000 people.
Now you are saying to yourself, that’s not me. I’m not a murderer. I don’t hit my kids. It is what happens inside of us that makes all the difference. The world on the outside will only change if we each individually take responsibility for what is on the inside. But we don’t want to look inside. Why? Because there is pain in there! Inside of many seemingly very nice people are thoughts of violence, hostility, anger, rage, hatred, and enormous judgment, not to mention fear and an overwhelming sense of rejection.
Witness Thought Transformation™ frees us from the tyranny of thought and releases us into the flow of life. From this vantage point we can witness the pain instead of becoming overwhelmed by it. Witnessing our thoughts takes us deep and long in a way that is not burdensome, but is uplifting and fulfilling.
I want to tell you the benefit of going deep and going long. It is a life of peace, free of struggle, without the need to become something or achieve something to feel like a complete being. Mastering Thought releases us from drama, ego patterns, and the need to prove something. With clean motivation, we can now step into the world and make a real difference.
I am a therapist. I know your pain. I have seen every kind of misery. I know the only way out is going deep and going long.
Do you find this message “off-putting?” Good! The more uncomfortable the better. No one in the history of human kind has ever gone deep and gone long until they were very uncomfortable with going nowhere.
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