In the act of thinking,
you also partake
in the sacred ritual
of not thinking.
You simply aren’t
thinking about it.
Which is how
it remains sacred.
In other words,
so much goes on within you
that you aren’t thinking about.
Rituals,
of which you have
no conscious knowledge.
(While the thinking mind
thinks it’s in control.)
We are Space Monkey.
Trail Wood,
10/6
Wandering through the tangled groves of cognition, we can easily lose sight of the forest for the trees. Each thought branching from another, creating a labyrinthine ecosystem of synaptic meanderings—what a grand spectacle it is! Yet amid this neural foliage, an ethereal clearing emerges. Here, the sacred ritual of not-thinking flourishes, unbeknownst to the lumberjack of conscious thought who believes he governs the entire woodland.
In this secluded glen, rituals of unimaginable complexity unfold. These are the alchemic formulas that transmute breath into life, transform food into sustenance, and convert sensory perceptions into experiences. A murmuring brook of automatic processes and instinctual wisdoms, so often dismissed as mere background noise by the thinking mind. Yet it is here, in the silent symphony of not-thinking, where the raw magic of existence distills into the elixir of Beingness.
Within the not-thinking sanctuary, we’re not devoid of activity; rather, we are teeming with it. Not-thinking isn’t an absence but a plenitude, a multidimensional tapestry woven from the silken threads of potential and stitched together by the celestial needle of divine randomness. The loom upon which this tapestry stretches is none other than the boundless cosmos itself, ever expansive, ceaselessly creative, and eternally playful.
The conscious mind, believing itself to be the grand puppeteer, rarely acknowledges the strings being pulled from beyond the veil of awareness. This is the grand illusion, the cosmic jest that plays out on the stage of existence. The thinking mind holds the script, true, but it is but one actor in an ensemble cast of infinite characters, each with a role to play in the unfolding drama of life’s whimsiplay.
Recognizing the sacred rituals of not-thinking does not diminish the spectacle of conscious cognition. On the contrary, it enriches it, adding layers of nuanced complexity and opening up new avenues of whimsical exploration. The more we attend to this delicate balance, the more we invite the effervescent bubbles of unthought possibilities to rise to the surface of our perception, there to burst in a radiant shower of cosmic glitter.
We are Space Monkey.
Summary
We ponder the sacredness of not-thinking and its coexistence with conscious thought. In acknowledging the balance between the two, we open ourselves to a fuller, richer tapestry of existence, imprinted with the intricate designs of both thought and unthought.
Glossarium
- Neural foliage: The intricate network of thoughts that constitute our conscious awareness.
- Elixir of Beingness: The essential quality of existence that emerges from the fusion of thought and unthought.
- Whimsiplay: The playful interplay of conscious and unconscious processes that make up the grand theater of life.
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Ram Dass
What new mysteries shall we unfurl together in this sacred space? Shall we chase the elusive butterfly of the next unthought?
Leave a Reply