RESTLESSNESS REQUIRES A BUILDUP

For peace, what do you have to do? For restlessness, you have to work; you have to create a buildup because, without one, you can never become restless. The problem is that this buildup is not something that we do consciously. It gets built up, like a wall erecting itself. Suppose you have a pile of bricks and they just assemble themselves into a wall. You would consider it a miracle, but you do not consider a buildup of thoughts a miracle because it always happening. It is a miracle, however, because it just happens. That it just builds itself up and you have no say over it is truly amazing.

There is a helplessness in the whole process. Something triggers off a buildup; it may be a simple hormonal change, indigestion, someone's look, a frown, a change of weather, or any number of other things. Any one thing is good enough- you may be combing your hair and a few hairs come out! Any event that you do not accept starts it off and then your mind is busy for the entire day.

Restlessness requires a buildup to which I, myself, am not a party. And yet the buildup is mine. I do not look upon it as different from myself. I see myself fuming and do not know what to do. I have to do something about it because, although I am not a party to it, I am completely involved in it.

Why is that I cannot keep track of this thought-by-thought buildup? This is because the whole habit of thinking has been " noodlethinking," associative or nondirectional thinking. It is not "peanut thinking" where, as in eating peanuts, you take one peanut, then another peanut, and then another. It is all "noodle thinking" and, in fact, is the most common type of thinking.

THE BEGINNING OF THOUGHTS

If I were to give the usual advice, "Do not allow this type of thinking to buildup, just nip it in its bud,"it would be easier said than done because there is no bud. The thinking first appears as a flower. By the time I become aware of it, it has become a huge jungle. It is not something that buds and can be nipped immediately.

The very beginning of such thinking is an association of "I." Without that, the thoughts would not begin. This mechnical thinking, associated as it is with "I" has no history, really. We may say it comes from childhood, that we picked it up from their parents, and so on. If that is the case, this kind of thinking has no actual begining; it has not created at a given time.

Because of its association with 'I," there is no question of my being aware of the first thought because I am taken over at the outset by the thinking itself. I become the very thought and the thought becomes me.

Therefore, the advice, "nip it in its bud," is meaningless and can only create complex such as, " I cannot nip it in its bud. I don't know how." Such thinking just adds to my buildup of guilt. What, then, can I do?