Nine of us today met up to explore the mystery of life. We first looked at a Eckhart Tolle video considering the question is thought coming from the ego. Eckhart believes that thoughts are entities in their own right and are in actual fact the ego. He advised creating space in the mind to observe this activity. Afterward we looked at this idea on it.
Find Happiness 22: “Good Thoughts” and “Bad Thoughts”: Baloney!
by Lucky on August 1, 2010
Earlier in my life, I used to waste an inordinate amount of mental energy dealing with what I felt were “bad thoughts” (i.e. thoughts which I felt were “wrong” for me to think). If a “bad thought” happened to pass through my head, I would immediately attempt to get rid of it (to no avail, of course, since we cannot really control what we think). Try as I might, the thought would most often keep returning, almost as if to taunt me, and I would struggle to stop it. This occupied much time which I could have otherwise spent productively.
Also, since I was not successful in getting rid of “bad thoughts,” I decided that I was in a hopeless situation. This invoked worrying about how my life was going to be wasted because of “wrong” thinking, and anxiety about whether I would ever be able to fix the problem. More time frittered away.
To make things worse, my hopelessness created downstream effects of dejection and low self-esteem.
The acute mental distress I thus experienced forced me to look for a solution. After much searching and effort, I came across an enlightened person; the great thing was that he wanted to help me find happiness and was infinitely patient. He would not only solve my problem, he said, but would rebuild my psyche into something akin to a shimmering palace.
In time I learned from him that I am the silent being that is aware of my thoughts and am therefore in a way separate from them. Secondly, he taught me that there are no "good thoughts" and no "bad thoughts"; there are only thoughts. He explained that thoughts are like birds flying across the sky and that I should just watch them; I should not try to chase any of the birds away or capture any of them, just watch them fly by............
