Say I am aware of what might be called dreaming, or of thinking in the waking state. The content of the thinking can be interesting, informative and engaging. But it’s obsessive nature is what I can find disturbing, frustrating. The engagement is troublesome. Why are the thoughts running at all? Why does the thinking have a compelling force, seemingly unstoppable? The interaction I might have is a consuming recommitment to the dominating train of thought. I am forced into a concurring participation by default.
Is this process indicative of the actual state of affairs which goes unnoticed in day to day life? Are we going about the day with dominant trains of thought? Is this an interference which affects our disposition to life? The instinct is to control, if not stop, any train of thought deemed irrelevant, or unnecessary. This effort is futile. The engagement becomes another train of thought. In the consequence of this interaction which proves difficult and futile, there is the disturbed, obsessive mind. This exercise is probably what we believe is productive thinking.
What I may be saying is awareness is the continuing engagement with an obsessive thought process, or thinking. The possibility I can know about thought, to think about it, is also further engagement with a process. This is said to be indicative of an underlying state of fear where the mind has shifted away from the clarity of actuality, to be interacting with images, words, ideas, belief, etc. The idea there is some kind of separate independency where I have ability, is part of the shift in fear. The effort to control is a byproduct of fear, although it seems an ordinary, routine, task. The controlling instinct is what makes the flow of thought problematic and disagreeable. We can’t stop a controlling instinct. What can be done is to seriously, fully, look at this whole fear we call self, for oneself, not as some issue, but completely, as in meditation, and watch the flow of thought, not interacting or reacting.