What Does it Mean 'Don´t Believe Your Thoughts'? - 27th Sept. 2016

Okay, to questions from Serenity on YouTube: 'Which desires to follow and which to witness? What do you mean when you say don't believe your thoughts? Not act on it?' So let's unravel this a little bit. A thought is only an energy construct which is appearing and disappearing. This we must check first. You must look closely at what thoughts are. How do you perceive your thoughts? What is a thought? Check now. Wait for the next thought to come. And I know that very naturally, as we look at the mind and say 'I'm waiting for thoughts to come,' for most of us, they start to become quiet and not show up at all. But they do come eventually.

So as they come, you will find that there are these two forces, as I call them, that can interact with this energy. Firstly, the power of our attention. And that which gets our attention seems to be alive, seems to exist for us. But the thought could say anything. Thought could say 'There is a green apple in my fridge right now.' So attention can go to it: 'There is a green apple in my fridge right now.' But just because attention went to it, are we identified with it? Or you spoke about desire, so let's take a thought like that: 'I want to eat a green apple.' Just because attention went to it, does it automatically become a belief? Does it automatically become our desire, which is nothing but a strongly believed concept?

So, 'I want to eat a green apple.' With the interaction of our attention and our belief, depending on how much belief has been given to it, it becomes a desire or not. Now, this is the root of all spiritual practices, because most spiritual practices teach that we must not give these thoughts our attention. You must keep our thoughts on our breath, or must in Hatha Yoga keep the attention on the breath, or keep attention on the body, or keep attention on a mantra, or keep attention, as Maharaj said, on the presence 'I Am,' you see? But I have to speak from my own experience, and I can tell you that here at least, the attempts to just keep attention away were largely unsuccessful. They would happen for some time and then attention would go back to these thoughts. So I cannot tell you that which did not work here, but I can tell you that 'do not give it belief' seemed to be much simpler here.

So when the thought comes, it is allowed to just come and go. Even if attention goes to it, it's fine. We are not serving it tea, you see? So when the Zen master said 'Allow thoughts to come and go, just don't serve them tea,' this is all that it could have meant. Because even to say that thoughts come and go needs our attention, you see? Therefore, in the allowing of them to come and go, attention must go on them, but at least we are not giving them our belief. We are not serving them this tea. So this simple allowing is a surrendered life.

Now, does this mean that just because we are not believing these thoughts, which are lying and saying that I am this individual entity, does then life have to become boring, vegetative, or irresponsible, reckless? It doesn't have to be either. Is it because that which is running the life now has been always the one running the life? It has been a delusion that I was a doer, because you cannot even find this personalized 'I' that can do something. So that which we cannot find, that does not exist, definitely cannot do anything. That's why I say that God is not waiting for a surrender; He has been running our life. All of this play has been His play. So surrender is not doing; it is a recognition of the reality of how this realm plays.