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The Past – All thought is old!
“We recognise only something that we have already known and therefore when we say we have had a new experience it is not new at all” : Jiddu Krishnamurti
In part 1, we started the inquiry into the origin of thought and examined why Learned “Labels” play an important role in influencing our perception of reality.
Lets look at how we believe that our past defines who we are by examining;
The Past Event
“Game of Thought”, presents the self perpetuation of thought, the inevitable question that arises from every answer. As we are currently inquiring into the origin of our thoughts based on past events, we need to include experiences recorded by our senses. Events that have an emotional impact on us play a major role in confirming the illusions created by our thoughts. The recollection of past events in the form of memories is the recollection of the experience from the perspective of all of the senses, and is accompanied by powerful emotions. It is not surprising that we would become addicted to recalling memories, as this can produce very intense sensations.
As most people are in a constant search to “feel good”, attempting to relive past pleasurable experiences is the perilous path that most take. Perilous, as the relationship between emotions (feelings’) and thought is usually far more obvious in the negative form than the positive. The stomachache, headache, nausea, vertigo (among others) relating to anxiety is an experience most have encountered. Even the good feelings generated by positive memories can produce the bad feelings associated with the desire to reproduce the event. One should never underestimate the capacity of desire to produce a perpetual state of stress and suffering. Recalling memories is what starts the pendulum swinging from past to future with no pause for the present.
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We should also review distorted memories within this category as they have the same impact on our feelings and emotions. Distorted memories are produced when the feelings and emotions are recalled from an imaginary event or a perspective that distorts the actual event. An example of this would be for instance, a recent case of a young woman who raised thousands of dollars to support her through the treatment of cancer even though she did not have cancer. So the motivation for this act we could say was the money, but money is usually the idea of happiness. However, this woman needed to act the role day after day for a number of months in pursuit of this happiness. Her daily performance of a terminally ill person only becomes believable when she actually feels the pain. This was her distorted memory that was able to recall the imaginary pain of a terminal illness and make it real from her perspective.
Sexual fantasy is also the result of imaginary events. All the same symptoms are experienced with sexual fantasy (if not more intense) as with any recalled memory. Although sexual fantasy can be the recall of past events, imaginary events or a combination of both, it is in effect, a construction of non-factual thoughts accompanied by the recall of previously experienced physical sensations. However, this type of thought differs in the sense that when one engages in sexual fantasy, one is recalling the experiences and reliving them as a new experience in the present.
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So it does not require a great deal to observe that memories (real or distorted) are “old” thoughts, the challenge is can one observe how this addiction to memories projects us not only into the past, but also into the future? The simple act of wishing or wanting to reproduce the pleasurable feelings will inevitably lead to a sense of failure and negative self judgement.
Thoughts conflict with our intuitive feelings, leading to self criticism and fear. The only place that we can feel “good” is in the experiences of the present and not in the illusion of thoughts. Accepting that we must feel bad as a requirement to recognize the good is essential!
Not only are all thoughts OLD, but they distract us from the present which is the only place life exists.
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Related articles
- The Game of Thought – ultimatei.wordpress.com
The Ultimate I 