Do I have to stop thinking to awaken? Are thoughts illusions?
I have heard a number of spiritual teachers talk for quite a while about these two questions before answering ‘yes’ and ‘yes’. Spoiler alert: my answers will be ‘no’ and ‘no’ and I will try to keep my response brief because my main aim is simply to open up an alternative rather than provide a definitive answer. Do I have to stop thinking to awaken? I have heard so many spiritual teachers with negative things to say about thoughts, emotions, beliefs, memories and many more of the mental processes that we are aware of. Tim Grimes (2019) wrote a book entirely devoted to this topic. He makes it clear why in the following quote: “Thought created all this suffering—and thought itself was not real. Without thought, all was grace—always. It was all blissfully and blatantly simple, yet totally illogical. […] Whatever you thought, it didn’t matter. Thought had nothing to do with anything real. Everything was always perfect, no matter what you thought… […] I saw that thought was what cause...