Thoughts and feelings arise spontaneously, even in the absence of awareness. More so, in the absence of awareness. They play like children, often unheeded. Their play is mostly inconsequential. It repeats in loops.
Thoughts and feelings play on the stage of consciousness. This stage has limited space. Usually, it is robust enough to support the players and replenish itself. Not much of consequence happens typically.
Thoughts and feelings can arise from the depths or the surface. When received from the depths, they are intuition. When from the surface, they crowd mechanically and are repetitive. It is not simple to discern between the two sources. It is easier to tell the difference between the two effects.
From depths, we can only receive; on the surface, action is possible. Masculinity orients us to action. Femininity opens us to receiving. Our culture, unfortunately, is biased in favour of masculinity.
The play in consciousness remains mainly on the surface and is action-oriented. We prefer to have something to do at all times. It is a habit and a compulsion. The promise from the depths is unreliable. We’d rather have something concrete. Receptivity is equated with passiveness and banished.
The play in consciousness is outward-facing. Thoughts divide the I from the World, the inner from the outer. In making this division, access to the depths is obscured. Players on the stage are content to gaze outward, looking without seeing. We substitute the inner with the outer. We habitually deal in objects, even when we deal with ourselves.
Consciousness is primarily information-based. We like the concreteness and reliability of knowledge. It furnishes trust. It gives us something to hold on to. Information underlies imagination. Consequently, we can’t imagine an alternative to information.
We seldom look at the operation of the play itself. We do not cultivate reflection. Our gaze is outward and does not like stillness. Even when we reflect, we resort to methods and objects, which brings us back to the world of the outer.
While we remain mostly at the surface, our contentment breeds deeper discontent. We seek the love that can only be received from the depths. Our actions, however, keep us to the surface.
Life is intricate. Its complexity exceeds our skill. It favours growth. Sometimes it pushes us to our limits, or sinks us to our depths. What appeared robust can dissolve abruptly. Support can vanish. Wood and concrete can turn to mud on the stage of consciousness.
A mechanical dance of thoughts on a stage of mud leaves imprints. The pattern deepens with each redrawing. The wounds deepen with each rehearsal. Hurt grows roots and becomes its own thing. It demands recognition. Re-cognition implies repeated cognition. Recognition deepens and sustains our wounds. We become reactive and neurotic.
Mechanical thinking is a frequent reaction to our wounded self. Thinking hovers around calling ourselves hurt. Our stories strengthen the grooves in the mud. Words, with error hiding underneath, add structure to our pain. Through recall and story-making, the wounds stay alive.
Mechanical thinking prevents stillness. We remain at the surface. We go around in circles. Mechanical thinking brings temporary relief, just like an addiction. It keeps us from turning towards.
We find stillness awkward. We are not used to silence. It brings up discomfort.
In silence, strange things begin to occur. Doing is suspended. Being gets a chance to unfold. The usually dormant faculty of awareness gets activated. Attention is made available to receive. Nothing happens as a rule. We find ourselves in a pathless land.
In silence, buried patterns of hurt arise spontaneously as if the depths had been waiting to communicate. The liveness of arising hurt is infinite. We typically avoid staying with such liveness. It resembles chaos. We’re afraid of chaos. It triggers anxiety in us. In response to chaos, we reactively grope for the known.
The players on the stage of our consciousness aid in mapping chaos into concepts. From the unknown, we reduce ourselves to the known. We turn the liveness of the infinite into cognition of thoughts and feelings. We reduce the generalised suffering of anxiety into fear. As early as possible, we reactively turn away from fear.