Monday 19 March 2018

Thinking and Not Thinking


My professor told me that I showed I could think. He was explaining to me, in a nice way, why he gave me a low (the lowest) honours degree. I probably deserved to fail because as evinced by my single page answers I knew nothing. My goal these days is to incorporate not thinking along with thinking and an improvement in reading level. ‘Not thinking’ (citta vritti nirodha the destruction of mental waves) is quite the most important element in the development of a creative mind. Inevitably because of the economy of effort our cogitations become mired in cliche. Like the ox at the well raising water we imagine that we are going on a very long journey.

Writing, even a page, is the test of whether your not thinking has invaded your thinking. I fill notebooks of good quality paper with pen and think and never look at them again. Is it significant that hand writing becomes more regular when you focus on the letter you have just written and not the one you are writing? This is the opposite of cutting a straight line on a bandsaw freehand. There you focus on the point just in front of the blade. Following a curve with a knife in carving is like this too. The feeling is of drawing the blade into the line with your intention. In writing there is going back into the fund to make withdrawals.

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