WE are formed and shaped by all of our personal experiences. This needs to be repeated to get the point across. If we can be shaped by experience it's useful to know 'what shape we are holding'. We all know of passive and aggressive stances and even passive/aggressive. But what about the subtle shapes we form. The subtle shapes manifest in our beliefs about ourselves and others.

'What we believe to be true is true until such beliefs are challenged and replaced by new beliefs'. The Earth is flat, the Earth is round or slightly oval shaped. At one time it was generally believed that if you sailed out into the oceans far enough you would drop off the edge of the planet. So it becomes true in a sense that belief is not real. My belief in something does not make that something so!

The interesting thing about meditation, (Dyhana), is that if we can sit still long enough we start to get this idea that we can kind of watch our own thought processes. It's as if the part of us that is dormant most of the time is awakened during meditation and begins to observe the thought processes we are having. This aspect of the self we could call 'witness consciousness' the self observing the self. Which then surely begs the question, that if we can watch our own thoughts then we are not our thoughts, we must be something deeper than that. Hmmmmm very interesting you say but 'so what?'

The speech centres are in the newest part of the brain the 'neo cortex', and the more ancient part of the brain, the cerebellum is towards the back of the skull. If you can imagine putting your awareness into that area ( the cerebellum) and kind of look forward you can watch the speech centres whirring on and on and on endlessly chatting about all sorts of irrelevant rubbish ad infinitum. Which I think is highly entertaining. However the more serious point to be made is that these thought processes come from somewhere and go somewhere, kind of rise and fall so to speak. The only time they can impact on the physical system is if 'we' that is the 'I' of the ego picks them up and makes something of them. If we dont pick up any of them they just keep passing through the screen of the mind. Wouldn't you like to be able to stop thinking now and again and give yourself a break?

So the point is that if thoughts are just rising and falling then what are they for. There are various analogies to this 'egoic' aspect of the mind. One is that the 'ego' is there to serve the larger mind and that somehow the 'ego' has usurped the larger mind and taken over the show. As if the butler of the household is now telling it's employers what to do, banging on endlessly about this and that. A bit like me really :)

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.