Your thoughts can no more tell you what is true about your possibilities
than can a set of stream-side boulders know the nature of the waters
that rush by them.

The Secret of Knowing Without Thinking

Imagine for a moment what your life might be like if you never again were to pick up a complaining thought or feeling. Think of how your days would flow without carrying the additional weight of those inner voices always telling you, “I’m too tired,” or “This is too much for me!” The weight of the world would be replaced by a new sense of freedom. Fresh, new energies would flow.

If this is the kind of inwardly carefree life you really want, then look closely into these next two ideas that together tell one story of freedom: leaving troubled thoughts right where you find them is the same as not picking up what troubles you. And if you can leave just one of these weary thoughts behind you, then you can leave two, and three, and four, and fifty!

Most people tend to worry that if they don’t worry, something bad will happen to them. But what they don’t see is that these worried thoughts they’ve picked up by mistake are the very storm they fear will come!

You may wonder, “But what happens if I make a mistake? How can you tell which thoughts and feelings are the right ones to leave where you find them, and which ones do you pick up? What if I choose wrong?” You needn’t worry about such questions. Here’s why.

There’s a way to know, without ever having to think about it, exactly which of your own thoughts and feelings are your friends, and which are foes — a totally thought-free way to understand which of your thoughts are practical and necessary for everyday life, and which are stealing your life with unsuspected self-compromise. It’s true. You possess unsuspected powers of perception just waiting to be awakened. The following technique will help you get started.

Stop reading this for a minute and allow your eyes to fall on something familiar in the space where you are. Notice how your mind immediately gives that object a name. Having done this part of the exercise, keep your attention on whatever you’ve selected, and then continue to watch how more thoughts come into your mind about what you’re seeing.

Now, while you’re witnessing both that object and your growing stream of associative thoughts and feelings about it, just drop these thoughts and feelings.

You can still see the object, and you still know what it is — but now you are knowing without thinking. This is your introduction to an unconditioned relationship with life.

In this form of higher attention, of knowing without thinking, you can see that the meaning of the object before you has not changed. The difference is that now its meaning speaks directly, silently to you — instead of you listening to your thoughts tell you about its meaning.

When it comes to seeing a chair or a pencil, this new kind of thought-free state may not seem too profound. But this practice can, and should, be enlarged to encompass your whole life.

The benefits behind the ability to understand something, or someone, without having to go into thought, cannot be over estimated. You may not be able to think your way out of a nagging problem, but you can see your way clear of it. This special kind of inner seeing is safety. Waking up to yourself is the same as letting go of all those self-defeating thoughts and feelings that have been telling you how to win.

– Guy Finley