I appreciate everyone's comments. It really makes me think.
I think what spoke to me was the fact that we choose, either consciously or subconsciously, how we react to any given stimulus. So, Moe, the driver cuts you off. You have the ability to choose to be pissed off and aggressive, or you can just observe it for what it is, someone else making a different choice in their driving than you would, and not let it drive negative emotion. Of course you have to physically react to it to make sure you are safe, but do you have to, are you absolutely driven to, get into a state of road rage with no control over the situation? That is where I think I have seen the greatest value.
I think Babe is getting closer to what I see in this, but imho, Tolle is not in any way talking about ignoring anything, least of all an immediate threat to life or limb, but rather perceiving everything as it is without judgement in order to be able to choose how to react, or if at all to react to it. This is the problem I have with religion is we are in essence programmed to judge everything constantly and often harshly, especially ourselves, and that these preconceived judgements are supposed to directly guide our lives. As opposed to the view that we should choose, by being able to truly be in the present moment without judgement or expectation, how and when we react to things that occur to and around us. We have been programmed to react in certain ways, either culturally or through our own previous experiences with allowing our emotions to happen to us, so much that it is simply second nature to react, instead of consciously acting. Not that a moral framework, be it through organized religion or a personal philosophy, isn't something we should strive to live by, but that the way we do so is of far more importance and profundity to us when we eliminate the programming of reaction and choose how or if we are going to react, or what connotation we are going to append to an occurrence, even our own failings, or "sins".
In The Power of Now, Tolle says
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness...
Like Babe said, it isn't anything earth shattering, but it is something that made me really look at how I approach my life, and realize that what I viewed as happening "to" me in a negative light, was really my negative reaction to what is in essence mostly neutral stimuli.
Obviously as a moral person, I think we should have some guiding set of standards and some reactions are normal and expected and even healthy, but for me the ah-ha moment was in looking at this as a way to take back my psyche from the overwhelming forces of what was happening to me and taking control of how I responded to it.
Again, boiled down like that it seems just to be common sense, but I think in practice, an in everyday life, it is anything but easy or second nature for us.
I am trying to put this in a framework that doesn't sound just, well stupid, but it's hard to put into words I guess. I know what I am seeing in my mind and in my life but it is hard to get at the core of it with something as limiting as words, you could say. And I know that many people find this exact condition through organized religion, but for me organized religion was perpetuating and even was the source of the labels, judgments, etc. that formed that block. Or, as I am beginning to see, not the religion itself but my reaction to it, maybe.
I guess this might be why I felt like I wanted to open this up in a forum, to be able to explore some of these topics in a context that would really make me think through it all, even when the title of the thread is "not thinking". So I apologize if it seems disjointed. I have felt very disjointed over the past year or so, so I guess it is to be expected.
(that is what I did there, Moe, see?...thinking about not thinking? what do you think?
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