(Warning: I usually write articles in the range of 5-700 words that one can read in 3 minutes. This one is considerably longer, like 5 minutes. I think it's worth the extra time, but your experience may vary 😊)
One would have to have been living in a remote cave over the last 15 or so years to have not heard of the blockbuster book and movie, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. For years, spiritual seekers spoke of this book and its so-called life-changing message like it was a veritable oracle of supreme wisdom, a magical life-changing approach that promised its adherents wealth, health and unbridled happiness.
Fast forward 14 years and the very same author published a new book, called The Greatest Secret. While the first book emphasized the power of thought to manifest the life of your dreams, The Greatest Secret illuminates the depth of spiritual reality that lies at the core of us, and all of manifestation. I point out this sequence since it tracks and mirrors in large part my, and many spiritual seekers, evolving understanding of reality and the truer path to peace and happiness. While the first “secret” emphasized the power to choose thoughts in order to create desirable material conditions as the way to wellbeing and fulfillment, the second book, is a deep dive into the inner realm of pure consciousness, the true source of unconditioned and ever-present peace and happiness.
As a student of Unity philosophy and Unity minister for several decades, I often struggled with one of the major tenets which is the contention that we have power over our thoughts. The precept is strong and riddled through nearly every Unity publication or message. It suggests that not only can we be aware of our thoughts, but further that we choose them and can control them. I don’t know about you but I really struggled with that notion and failed miserably in effecting such choice and control of thought activity. It has always seemed like thoughts, like the weather, just arose in awareness sans choice or control on my part. But it always bothered me to feel like I was out of integrity with the whole of the Unity message by neither holding myself accountable to the content of my thoughts nor emphasizing this “change your thoughts, change your life” in my Sunday talks. However, authenticity ruled over towing the Unity line, just like Gandhi who refused to tell a child to stop eating sugar until he himself had given it up.
So just what is the (my) truth about thoughts and their relation to the quality of our life experience? Looking first at the question of whether we choose our thoughts, we can ask ourselves matter of factly, is there evidence of a choice prior to the recognition of a thought? I find no such moment of choice. A thought arises in consciousness but I have no sense that I picked that particular thought amongst an infinite number of alternative thoughts. Do you? Not that we don’t understand the deep need we humans have for prediction and control, but the reality of that ability remains for me deeply questionable.
Look at the human body for example. At any moment there are billions of chemical and electrical actions and reactions taking place within the bodily systems. How many of those do you have control over? You would likely say, None, but regardless of that seeming lack of control, you might still maintain that you have control over your thoughts. But let’s examine that seeming choice.
We all want to be happy wouldn’t you agree? That seems to be universal. In order to be happy, we simply have to hold thoughts that make us happy right? It doesn’t matter what happens as long we hold positive thoughts about the situation, we can become or remain happy. So, it doesn’t matter what scenario unfolds since the premise is that we can control our thoughts. Why then wouldn’t we choose to be happy all the time? No matter what happens? Your partner suddenly tells you he/she is leaving you, and your response is, “Great!” Is that response likely or unbelievable? The premise that we can control our thoughts even though our primary desire is for happiness breaks down when seen as an absolute truth. I would say that thoughts ( including beliefs, perceptions, and feelings) are a product of conditioning over which we did not have any choice. And thoughts that arise are formed and colored by such conditioning, not as blanks to be filled in by free will and free choice.
So if we can’t choose happy thoughts how do we go about realizing true peace and happiness in the face of unbidden thoughts, feelings, and circumstances? The answer is in investigating the sense of a chooser, digging into the sense of a temporary, finite self that is in control of your life and seeing it for what it is and isn’t. And when you look for this separate self you won’t find one. Thus there is no chooser of thoughts. A separate entity that you think is you does not exist. When you reflect upon yourself what do you find? Thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, memories. All of these arise, are experienced, and pass. But you, the witness of all these seeming phenomena remain. You, conscious awareness itself, do not pass. You are there before a thought arises, in the duration of the thought, and after it's gone.
We think that we are bodies with a mind and that we have thoughts, feelings, and sensations and that they are ours. My thoughts, my feelings, etc. We identify with them. But we’re not bodies. We are pure consciousness. Thoughts arise in consciousness. You don’t choose them or control them. We don’t create reality even in the relative sense since we don’t choose our thoughts. And certainly, we don’t create ultimate reality which is changeless, eternal.
The character got created in early childhood and it essentially eclipsed the true self, pure being, moving to the forefront of experience so you came to identify with the character with its endless discontent and neediness, and your life became in service to this vulnerable character that only experiences fleeting moments of peace and happiness, while the true self that is peace and happiness itself remains seemingly hidden in the background of experience.
So instead of berating ourselves for having negative thoughts or believing that inadequate spiritual effort is to blame for our unhappiness, investigate the sense of a separate self toward the ultimate realization of its nonexistence. The Apostle Paul said I die daily. And St. Francis said it is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life. As the false self diminishes, the true self emerges to take its true and rightful place in your reality. As this transformation takes place, there are fewer thoughts of lack and limitation and more thoughts reflecting the one and only true self that knows only unity, wholeness, love and peace. We don’t need to create reality with our thoughts, rather we need only uncover the reality of our being, and all the peace and happiness we could ever want is realized here and now.
Peace and blessings,
Rev. Larry
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