Occasionally, the universe screams a message relentlessly in your ear. It could be during full-on conversation, or maybe just a chance remark or aside from a friend. Every book casually opened has the same story to tell. It's as if around every corner there's a packet of wisdom waiting to come and smack you in the face. 'Oi, you. Yes, you! Listen!'
This has been the case for me just recently. The refrain ringing in my inner ear has been this: 'Too much thought'. By 'thought' I here mean something quite precise. Thinking can take many forms, but in this instance it's the kind of thought that aims to sort things out, understand things so they all make sense and fit into a nice, neat package. You know where you stand, you know what you're doing, you're in control, and you can get on with life.
I have been aware for decades of the limits to thought in its purely linear cause-and-effect manifestation. It has its place, but no more. You can't think your way to enlightenment, and for this reason I consider the mystical approach, which emphasises direct personal experience, to be more relevant - we could almost say 'superior' - than the philosophical way; though philosophy also has its necessary place.
The 'sorting out' kind of thinking appears in different guises and levels of subtlety. It is, I observe, more prevalent among men than women. I have long since abandoned the hopeless and impossible task of trying to sort out the universe into a nice, neat, logically coherent whole. Got it, understand it, control it, have exorcised the demons of uncertainty. The chimera-like nature of this pursuit is hinted at by, however many of the western philosophers you may read, looking for 'the meaning of life', you will inevitably come away disappointed. Many have interesting, illuminating even, bits and pieces to say, but beyond that, no... The thing is, the universe, reality, don't work like that. But I note that the question I posed recently, in the 'Gorillas and humans' post, about 'The demonstration or Zen?' as the approach to effective change in the world smacks of the same mentality. Looking for a blueprint; an over-arching principle that I can lay down onto the variegated multitude of events that present themselves in daily life. Maybe I can live without that; maybe it's not needed. It's something to experiment with. at least....
For an aspiring mystic, a major task is identifying and removing the 'veils of obscuration', as certain Buddhist traditions call them. Veils that obscure direct apprehension and experience. Beliefs are one such veil - they need to go, or at least be put to one side from time to time. 'Sorting out the universe' and 'blueprints for action' are another. All interpretation is something we lay on top of the infinite diversity of the universe. While we hold onto these interpretations, bound as they normally are by a linear, cause-and-effect way of seeing the world, we are merely boxing ourselves in. Confining ourselves to the shell of three dimensional material existence, while cutting off entries into other aspects of the universe, where synchronicity, for example, may be the norm. Put another way: if you believe that linear cause-and-affect is the only way the universe works, that's all you're likely to see.
Synchronicity - a mode of happening that is acausal in the normal sense, based on connectivity and outside linear time and space. You can put away the dominoes. It's actually there all the time. But you need to pull aside the veils first, before the wider universe can come shining in......
For myself, I shall attempt to stride boldly and courageously into every day afresh, free from blueprints, agendas, preconceptions. Face each new challenge in its uniqueness with fascination and intelligence. Let's see.....
