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    Watching Thought
    Watching Thought
    Watching Thought
    Ebook188 pages2 hours

    Watching Thought

    By W. Dutchak

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    About this ebook

    This is a stylized journal incorporating thoughts and comments on Life and the workings of the mind. The ideas came spontaneously and they evolved over many dialogues of varying contexts.
    The substance of this book is based on internet forum dialogues which revolved around the common group interest of Personal Development during the three years of 2009, 2011 and 2012.
    Personal Development was the opening for a much deeper exploration into the nature of thought. This exploration opens various channels of pursuit for spiritual growth and greater comprehension of what we are in essence.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. Dutchak
    Release dateJun 22, 2013
    ISBN9780969319962
    Watching Thought
    Author

    W. Dutchak

    Walter Dutchak has had a varied career, and eclectic education. His interests vary over a large range including music, art, amateur astronomy, philosophy, and spiritual topics. His career has included teaching in public schools, teaching adults in the work place, writing technical courses, engineering technology, computer programming and application design, and over 22 years in the telecommunications industry. Main current interests include self-inquiry and understanding relationships in their variety of manifestations. Being attuned to the manifestations of the subjective realm of reality is a primary point of attention in ever-present awareness. To date Walter has written four books: Thoughts and Time, Watching Thought, Mastery of Self and Journal of Glimpses. The author has been experiencing retirement from the labour market for the past 20 years. He is currently enjoying life with his spouse, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughters in the quiet town of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.

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      Book preview

      Watching Thought - W. Dutchak

      This is a stylized journal incorporating my thoughts and comments on Life and the workings of the mind. The ideas came spontaneously and they evolved over many dialogues of varying contexts. The substance of this book is based on my input while participating on an internet Personal Development forum during the three years of 2009, 2011 and 2012.

      These thoughts are pointers on a journey of awareness, hopefully leading to clearer understanding, which can be somewhat complex to define.

      The words came almost automatically with very little mental composition. When I think about it now, it surprises me and at the same time there is no real surprise.

      Now I invite you to share in my particular exploratory adventure of watching thoughts.

      walt

      ~.~

      tmp_1b35101942e47cda93174fdfb5a88eef_jdhofv_html_m7d9de6ae.png

      INTRODUCTION

      I don’t know how to think. DO YOU?

      How does one THINK?

      Do you squeeze your eyes shut, tighten your entire body and will a thought into being? What are the mechanics of thought?

      Or do thoughts just happen? Are they just there and over the years we develop an ability to attach to them in some way. And then do the thoughts become my thoughts and her thoughts and their thoughts?

      But if thoughts just happen, then where do they come from?

      Some would say that ‘you’ think. If that is so, then how would you think to stop thinking? After all, if you are the one in control of those thoughts you call yours, then shouldn’t you be able to stop them at will?

      Go ahead. Stop thinking. What will you do? Shout in your mind STOP! or SHUT UP!. But those are still thoughts. That is thinking. It hasn’t stopped.

      All of this is happening, and yet someone (something or some nothing) is seeing all this as it happens.

      You are actually witnessing it in real time. So you cannot be the thoughts that you are witnessing, for they appear to be other than you.

      So whatever sees thought cannot be thought.

      So I cannot be a thought, or can I? If I am my thoughts, then in who’s mind are these thoughts? Or does that even make sense?

      Pushing this a bit further a question of identity arises.

      Who, or what am I? – What is this I, or me that we feel so attached to or a part of?

      What are thoughts in essence?

      Why do they exist at all?

      BUT, I can WATCH them!

      I can watch thoughts!

      Give it your attention. You can observe or witness the very movement of thought. You can ‘see’ that flow of energy.

      Where are you looking from?

      EVERYWHERE! We are non-local beings. Modern day quantum physics confirms it!

      So is thought everywhere also? What are the implications here?

      Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a priest, a scientist and a spiritual visionary wrote several inspiring books both scientifically and spiritually based. He lived in the early twentieth century. Two of his outstanding books were the Phenomenon of Man – a scientific treatise on the evolution of humankind and its destination to what he called the Omega Point. Here he introduces the NOOSPHERE, an encompassing sphere of knowingness, intelligence and ‘beingness’ that surrounds the planet and all of humanity.

      Teilhard de Chardin makes the statement in this book that most people falsely assume we are humans seeking a spiritual or divine experience. But Chardin stipulates that the opposite is the case. We are spiritual being having a human experience.

      His other outstanding book that I very much appreciate is Le Milieu Divin or The Divine Milieu. This book is written from a strongly spiritual perspective, (de Chardin was a Roman Catholic Priest), and de Chardin unmistakably includes humanity in the overal picture of divinity.

      Burt Harding (a current day ‘seer’) clearly explains in his book Hiding in Plain Sight, that there appears to be a dual nature to our existence.

      We are human beings. The part that we are mostly accustomed to experiencing is the HUMAN part. That has been the source of our strong conditioning in a phenomenal world. This phenomenal world, through conditioning processes, has become our reality. In this phenomenal world we experience the opposites or duality of pain and pleasure, good and bad, right and wrong, and various other mind/thought and sensation related experiences. The HUMAN part of us appears to be ‘blessed’ or ‘cursed’ with the experience of Life.

      But then there is the other part of human being. The BEING part. The BEING that we are is rarely considered. It is in the realm of the spiritual. BEING is related to the verb TO BE. The present tense of the verb TO BE is I AM. Somewhere, therein, lays the answer to our beingness and relationship to Life. Everybody has I AM in common. We all use the present tense of the verb TO BE. We are that which IS.

      So is this all just thought? Or, can there be a ‘seeing’ or a perceiving beyond thought into the very nature of being?

      Can we transcend the inundation of the captive domain of thought?

      We always seem to be identified with thoughts such as I AM hungry, I AM hurt, I AM lonely, I AM important, I AM such and such or I AM great, or I AM unimportant and so on.

      Do we ever stop at I AM … not I AM this or that, but simply I AM. That is the basic statement of BEING. That is in the deepest essence who we all are. It is not definable.

      This I AM can, of course, be a mere thought. But can one just feel the essence of it and not the thought of it?

      Then, do I still THINK it – the I AM, the BEINGNESS of what I am?

      Many people might say that I think it, or that we think thoughts.

      But that makes no sense. What really is thinking?

      I watch the workings of Thought. Thought tells its own story.

      Let’s see what tales thought will tell about Life. I almost said My Life.

      But what is mine about it?

      I can perhaps call the experiences that I have in that one life mine.

      But can I actually claim that I am Life? Perhaps! But that is a bit deep for simple explanations right now.

      So I take this trip into the domain of thought … and perhaps beyond…

      And thus the tale begins…

      ~.~

      The dialogues begin…

      The online dialogues began in April of 2009 when I joined a forum for discussions on Personal Development.

      My interests were not really in the area of the topics that were being casually discussed by the participants of this forum.

      There were some very knowledgeable members who often posted in their areas of interest. Often the remarks were in specifically personal areas of interest. The exchanges between members were played out against a background of basic personal development principles and the forum site owner kept discussions on-track and provided articles he had written based on many years of experience in the field of Personal Development. He was a fan of Tony Robbins – a personal development guru.

      It is in this environment that I began to probe the members for responses that might reach beyond the commonly popular level of engagement in discussing the area of personal development.

      It was not as easy a task as I had first envisioned, but gradually several members started to respond to my probing.

      The rest of this book is recorded in a journalized style. I extracted the things that interested me most and have recorded entries herein from my personal perspective.

      The journal entries begin with entry number one in April of the year 2009. This entry is titled April (i), identifying it as the first entry in April. April (ii) would be the second entry in April, and so on. This notation records a sequence of events rather than dating them specifically.

      ~.~

      = Year 2009 =

      April (i)

      What is the self?

      Am I in a rut? How do I get out of a rut?

      Have

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