Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands

27 April 2018

Thought 2

“Unspoken word”


The enlightened have declared that life is the timeless and thoughtless ‘Here and Now’. They have also said that life flows like a river. But to every man and woman, however, time and thought are present in the here and now and life is full of interruptions and is not a flow.

So what is the understanding of the enlightened is the question?

A thought is not present in every moment of daily life. If a thought was indeed present in every moment of daily life, the mind would not be able to recognise itIt is also impossible for every moment to have a thought within it.

It is impossible because in between a moment and the next is a moment as well. Therefore, if a thought was present in every moment, the thought would not be recognised by the human mind.

The reason why the mind would not be able to recognise a thought if every moment had a thought, including the moment in between moments, is the fact of the moment in daily life.

The fact of the moment in daily life is that it is continuous, uncontrollable and unpredictable. A continuum does not have multiple moments in order to contain multiple thoughts of a human language, but the continuous flow of life is a singular moment. Also, the moment of numerical time present in any moment is not known by humans as yet.

To know the numerical time present in a moment is also impossible because a distinct, actual moment separate from the next cannot be determined. There is no separation between moments.

What is present in life is the continuous, uncontrollable and unpredictable sound of various intensities and qualities. In the human mind, only particular sounds of varying intensity and quality appear as a thought.

Now a thought is a word and a word is made up of letters. The ‘here and now’ does not contain time to be able to contain a letter or a word. This signifies that the ‘here and now’ is only sound with varying intensities and quality.

This implies that intermittently a thought with a context, which does not actually exist as an actuality, is precisely manifested by the intelligence in life.This convinces man and woman that an actual thought actually exists, while all that exists in any moment is only sound, which appears as illusory thoughts with content and context.

This signifies that the waking state with a thought and without a thought is actually thoughtless, because the ‘Here and Now’ neither contains a letter nor a word nor a thought with content and context. 

This implies that a thought is an unspoken, illusory word, because all that is present is a river of sound and also not even a part of a sound could be a letter. A river is also a spontaneous, uncontrollable and unpredictable flow. There are no parts in a river and the continuous flow is also only sound, just as life is only a continuous flow of sound in light. This signifies that life is timeless and thoughtless and flows like a river with sound.

Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
©Copyright V. S. Shankar 2018

Editor’s Note:
Thoughts and thinking are a familiar activity for human beings of any age and intellectual ability. They are as real for each one of us as is speaking and the thinkers may even be awarded different levels of worth in society. There are, however, occasions when thoughts and thinking become overwhelming to the human mind. The precise manifestation of a thought with a context by the intelligence in life is revealed by the understanding of the wise in this article as being illusory. Understanding this is freedom; as free as a flowing river. 
Julian Capper, UK.

German Translator‘s Note: 
Man wants positive thoughts. Man wants to avoid negative thoughts. Positive thinking is considered as a path to happiness. So when you think something negative about your situation, another or yourself, you are advised to think something positive instead. However, one should realize that the situation, the other, or oneself obviously has not changed the least while thinking positively now. This finding shows that even negative thoughts do not change the least of the situation, the other or oneself. It's just the view that changes. Now you might think that a positive attitude helps you to feel better. A deeper understanding, however, is the insight that man is totally dependent on positive and negative thoughts, although both obviously do not make up the situation. Life is the way it is, whether we think positive or negative. How real could thinking be? Man should think deeply about this in order to free himself from the dependence of his thoughts, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Dr. Shankar in "Thought 2" clearly shows the reader that every thought, positive and negative, is not real in life. Anyone who understands this deeply, spontaneously stops being impressed by positive or negative thoughts. The dependence of man on his illusionary world of thoughts, which he considers to be reality, ends.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.

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