LAW OF THREE (61) The Purpose of Thinking (2)

LAW OF THREE (61)

THE PURPOSE OF THINKING (2)

"If you are going to think, at least THINK. Use your own mind, heart, and grounded presence to see what is actually going on and try to understand with what is the most awake in you, not the most asleep" Cynthia Bourgeault

The question is: can we think?

"The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking"

Martin Heidegger, What is called thinking.

Implicit in the above quotations is that the power to THINK for ourselves needs to be developed. In blog 59, I wrote: "From an intellectual perspective, thinking needs to evolve into understanding in order to become an instrument of the will." In its undeveloped state, thinking is the mechanism that maintains the dream of a separate existence

When the attention is free from its attachment to thought we are able to observe objectively the stream of thought.  In detached observing spontaneous understanding may arise. This arising of understanding requires our conscious presence (reconciling force).  'It requires the presence of what is most awake in us'.

In true thinking our attention needs to play a discerning role in the articulation of thought. We need to actively be able to think our thoughts, instead of our thoughts thinking us. We need to ask ourselves: Am I in control of my thinking?

Perhaps Rene Descartes was right after all in his famous 'cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) if he meant: 'I can think, only when I am'.