Deeper than Thought

While most of us live almost entirely in a word-based thought-world, we're limited to experience only the symbols (words & images) that we ourselves create, & then substitute for the real thing. This is our "consentual reality".

For thousands of years, serious meditators, contemplatives, shamans, mystics & saints have had a qualitatively different - direct, complete, deep experience of reality.

Meditation, with the guidance of an experienced teacher, is one of the safest ways of gradually, intentionally venturing towards the depth of our being, towards clarity and wholeness. Meditation is a gentle, intelligent means of facilitating the shift from exclusively personal–verbal to include the transpersonal–postsymbolic processing ie from living a step removed from reality, in a world of stories & pictures to directly experiencing reality.

“To go beyond the ordinary mind is to go deeper than thought.

In Buddhism ignorance is often defined as the belief that you are the conditioned mind. ***

We have a mind, just as we have a body, but each is a manifestation of consciousness. What moves thoughts through the mind is precisely what moves the clouds across the sky. All are a part of the same continuum of creation unfolding. Mind and body float on the surface of the enormity of Being.

To go beyond the mind is to ever so irrationally and ever so reasonably go beyond our conditioning to the place, the logos, where unconditional love arises spontaneously.

You have to be more than rational to accept and dwell in the mystery. You have to love the truth in all its wild and subtle and indescribable forms.

We need to listen with the heart as we turn gently toward the mystery.”

Steven Levine. "Turning Toward the Mystery. A Seeker’s Journey." HarperSanFrancisco, NY, 2002.

*** Western psychology calls identification with one's thoughts "cognitive fusion" & tries to correct the confusion ("cognitive defusion").