#inthought - Desire and Conflict

Desire and Conflict

One of the biggest challenges of any mind is to separate concept from truth within its waking world of experience. Our minds have grown and developed from an early age in a technological society will have had to deal with a great deal of concepts. This ability to deal with concept has been described conceptually and we have even devised tests to determine our ability to deal with concept. The IQ test is a modern day test which is rather believed to test the intelligence of an individual. I could bring into question its ability to test or determine the true nature of intelligence of a human being, and with the belief in the infinite nature of intelligence of the human mind, one can only ask which mind has come up with the IQ test. It will be very clear from this onset that an IQ test is really a test of adaptability to modern life, because it rarely takes into account the intelligence required to navigate and survive in a natural environment, where the amount of data any living brain is able to gather is nearly infinite within such a setting.

Having said this, one can only ask, what is desire and what relationship does it have to conflict? The old Sanskrit teachings have stated that, in the mind all division breeds conflict, this can be a rather difficult statement to fathom because the very nature of survival in the modern world requires that one divides and categorises elements of one’s experience. The very nature of modern life implies that all action, tasks and objects be divided from each other through some form of categorisation which is what we have come to term as the order of the way things work, but this only describes a certain kind of order, an external and rather crude order where everything has a discrete place or position relative to another. This order is used to describe the relationship between objects or elements of this reality, such as human relationships in a family as brother, sister etc. The nature of thought would have it that categories can only be formed from a set of attributes around the subject or object and can never encompass the whole thing and by that nature that intelligence will always be incomplete and hence breed conflict in one aspect or another.

Desire on the other hand is a relatively similar sort of observation, because when one looks at the nature of thought and observation we will see that desire is not something to be described nor can it be objectified. The only way we can deal with desire is to see how it comes about, and that can tell us a lot about its nature.

In order to learn about desire we have to observe ourselves, and the way in which desire comes about, and within this observation we have to be very careful about how it is we observe, because as soon as we become idealistic or conceptual about what we are observing, then we may fall into the trap which may prevent us from seeing the desire actually. In this sense we have to look at the operation of thought in observation, which means that we have to see how thought reacts at all times, and that is something which can be difficult to do. Suppose one is walking in a shop and see’s a shoe upon that observation

of the shoe thought takes place, to categorise, name and even possibly proceed to image one-self wearing that shoe, all these images produce a pleasure in the thought, and from those pleasurable images there is desire, which is what the mind pursues -the pleasure of the image. The nature of thought would have it that it is limited, and any image it produces is not complete, or whole, therefore it will always create conflict, which may manifest itself during the pursuit of that image. Many of us have very many images in our heads, these have come from the many desires we have picked up during the course of our lives, and from consuming various types of media and entertainment. It is perhaps that the many images which we have formed of ourselves and our need to become has created so many desires that we pursue them irrespective of the limitation which may be produced by our thoughts in pursuit of that desire. Could desire perhaps be the root of conflict in the world, and is it possible to be free from desire..?

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#inthought - The Nature of Understanding

The Nature of Understanding

 Understanding seems to be one of the functions of the brain which cannot be put into words, but the nature of the mind which has understood can somehow be put in a logically discernable manner. A state of understanding can somehow be placed into a state of contentment, in which the mind does not continue to churn over and process or hold in its space the information which it does not understand. Lack of understanding implies that the mind is not identified with the particular idea or information, therefore it has no place in the current order of the operation of the particular mind, and hence breed conflict with that which it does not understand. This occurs when the mind finds classification of knowledge in other aspects which it does not identify as parts of its own, and ignores it for its use, until there comes an experience which makes use of information or ideas about the particular subject with which we have the limited understanding. One would need to get in to the process of learning and make a difference between learning and simply gathering information, because learning can imply that the mind of the learner is simply gathering information as knowledge. A demonstration of what one has learnt would be, to put it into action, the knowledge which one has in a manner which would be useful to not only one self, but the next individual, this would inevitably show that one has a clear understanding of their knowledge. So by this observation, one would inevitably see that there is a difference between knowledge and understanding; and knowledge without understanding may breed conflict up until such a time the mind comes upon an experience which will put that particular set of knowledge into action in a relatable manner to the experience of the individual. Experience can only have meaning if the particular experience is not divided into different aspects of itself such as dividing the experiencer from the experience as well as a constant assignment of what is known to what is being experienced, otherwise it breeds conflict and denies understanding.

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#inthought - The Importance of Identifying with the I

The 'I' is the root of operation of thought, and most of what we call action in its sense is based on what we think of our selves. In many ways, the way we think about ourselves determines the nature of our action. What ever task we set ourselves to, the root of action will always be the 'I'. If the 'I' is not consistent with the thought and hence the feeling, which usually expresses itself as negative emotion, then the proceeding action will be incomplete, sloppy, or in a sense carried out with a diminished sense of attention. So it is important to feel good before acting.


As one would observe themselves, the idea of the I becomes more and more ingrained as one proceeds throughout the activities of the world. The I, which is a definable set of memories of existence of the awareness which we identify with is partly limited through the use of simple word, and through the use of societal (other) descriptions. Simplify the language in the society and you can simplify the language with which the I can be described.
Why should one be accepting of word descriptions of the I, why is human description unappreciated?

The reason why the unappreciative nature of observation comes up is because of the acceptance of word, descriptors as the true description of the I. I am of the belief that societies once existed in a manner that the I could and did not be fully described. This allowed for space of the ‘extra special’ elements to be expressed. The understanding of us and life in general relates to the way the mechanism of description relates to ourselves. This gives it space in operation, and the space of operation determines the energy which can be harnessed for operation of these mechanisms. Subtle energies should be left to subtle processes, and subtle processes can be given subtle energies to work with, it is simply the mechanism of the reality; it is what keeps the order of operation. The order of operation can be said to be of energy and space, orientation and function, or mechanism of function.

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#inthought - The Awareness of Thought

A rather tricky article to write, since it has many ways to intepret and view. It is rather difficult because the nature of reading, and the nature of conversation are two completely different scenarios in the mind of many. In reading text, the intepretation and sight of the what is read, is purely for the intepretation of the reader, whereas conversation and dialogue, there is a constant sharing of intepretation so as to have the same mind about the subject. So what is it which interferes with intepretation?

Various faculties of the brain are responsible for activities we intepret as existence, and much of the basis of our action stems from such faculties. If we were to ask, what is it which the brain listens for in order to act? Be it reading a book, or watching a drama, or driving an automobile, one rationalises action against what they are seeing. Which part of the brain is thus responsible for the action, whether it is contemplation or the scripting of a new idea. We have come to use words and symbols as a means of pointing out what is in our minds, such symbols have been used to communicate in various ways for the longest time. They lay in the part of our mind, which we have access to during most of the day. It is the repository for all the experience which we have come identify and communicate and create much of the useful artifacts of our world. It has become the basis of our work and thus what we identify with, it is the labels we use to characterise the world and each other.

Much of what I am describing here is the ability to think, or to contemplate or to have useful action. It is the voice in our head, the memory of a past pleasure or pain, or the knowledge about a particular subject. That operation is thought, which is really the past, laying dormant in our brains ready for us to make it the present. It is the recognition through sight sound or smell. It is thought, so can we be aware of thought as it operates in our lives..? and this can leave us with the question, is anything new the result of thought, or is it some other action independent of thought.  

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