Importance and power of thinking

[Fomalhaut]

It is very important for a person to think in his / her Work and it is one of the most important practice. For being able to understand, embrace, love and feel spiritually, one should be thinking a lot over that. Without thinking, all of those would be nothing but blind faith. I hope I was able to write what I mean a bit concretely. I am not best at writing about my ideas and feelings sometimes

What are your ideas about this?

[Nefastos]

In our culture "thinking" has many different meanings.

For example, "free thinking" is a credo of sorts for the new humanistical & scientifical way of life, that is based on facts deduced in academical processes of thought. (It's even used as a synonyme for "atheism" because, these people seem to argue, a thinking person can find theistic arguments only absurd.) It seems, however, that academical world does not often stress free thinking as much as it stresses memory; collecting & organizing data. But information in itself is not thinking, thinking means - or so I see it - ability to both add new ideas and leave out ideas. It's a process without logical certainties; ultimately a process of art that can't be proven but only appreciated or left without appreciation. All true thinking is always "thinking outside the box" in my opinion, otherwise it would be only machinery; empty, repeating, meaningless.

An opposite example would be the New Age movement. It much stresses the individual freedom to "think for oneself", but actually much of the new wave spirituality isn't so much about thinking than intuitive feeling.

These two - too strong an emphasis on so-called hard facts & too strong an emphasis on seemingly redeeming subjectivity - are something I think every one should somehow be able to solve with each other... by personal thinking. It can't be done by others, but it can be helped or hindered by others.

Let it be said for the start that these are only my personal thoughts or even, if you want, feelings. Brother Wyrmfang for one sees academical thinking in much more hopeful light, & I'm not saying his more academically inclined way of seeing these processes would be wrong in the least. And neither are wrong per se the mystics, who think that the thinking itself is a hindrance.

[Wyrmfang]

In our culture "thinking" has many different meanings.

Indeed. There are at least 20 significant different conception of intelligence (emotional intelligence, intrapsychic intelligence etc.) and no one is a master in all of them. It seems clear that intelligence is the central evolutive challenge today; most people are always upset most if they are deemed not intelligent, although this may be even a praise, depending on the context. On the other hand, that someone has the status of an evil person, may even be taken as a praise, although it should never be taken that way.

Not only is an overemphasized mechanical intelligence problem but also a kind of paranoid logic (most evident in conspiracy theories), which is a desperate response to it. I think one of the most important basic insights there is to human nature is to understand that intelligence, love and will are never essentially in contradiction, but the seeming contradictions arises when one tries to disregard some of these, and therefore comes more or less to distort also the strongest element in oneself.

These two - too strong an emphasis on so-called hard facts & too strong an emphasis on seemingly redeeming subjectivity - are something I think every one should somehow be able to solve with each other... by personal thinking. It can't be done by others, but it can be helped or hindered by others.

This is well said. According to Schelling, personality is the bond between the lawful order of existence and the chaotic ground of existence, which is essentially blind longing to existence. Spirit is something by which personality is made to blossom in the service of the whole or descended into meaningless differentiation in the vain attempt to serve only the self.

For example, "free thinking" is a credo of sorts for the new humanistical & scientifical way of life, that is based on facts deduced in academical processes of thought. (It's even used as a synonyme for "atheism" because, these people seem to argue, a thinking person can find theistic arguments only absurd.)

There actually is a freedom of thinking today. Atheism of course is the ruling paradigm of today, and this has its necessary social consequences, but universities as such are entirely neutral in this respect. There are great deal of units where there is a religious consesus, be it fundamental Christianity or something more intelligent. There is not that much "academic consensus" in this but a general consensus which effects also the academic social practices.

It seems, however, that academical world does not often stress free thinking as much as it stresses memory; collecting & organizing data.

Sciences do not deal only with hard facts; there are very few hard facts in social and cultural sciences, and qualitative research is often neutral even to truth. In middle-ages there was a lot stronger religious consensus than atheism has today, but also a great deal more concentration on memory. Most of today´s bad practices in this sense date back to those times, and now there is quite a universal attempt to make universities more lively.

But information in itself is not thinking, thinking means - or so I see it - ability to both add new ideas and leave out ideas. It's a process without logical certainties; ultimately a process of art that can't be proven but only appreciated or left without appreciation. All true thinking is always "thinking outside the box" in my opinion, otherwise it would be only machinery; empty, repeating, meaningless.

This is very true, but it´s hard to find how this is a critique of academic practices. New insights are constantly sought in science, but the burden of proof is on him who has a new idea. And as soon as the idea is accepted as a part of science, it is no more personal. Not everything valuable must be scientific, this would actually be exactly the kind of overemphasizing the role of science in life practiced by the positivists of the early 20th century.

Academic practices can be suffocating for occultists with certain personalities, but often it is also about one´s pride. Such was my case several years ago. I felt the atheistic consesus oppressive, and accused the general practices of university about this, but later I came to realize that about 90% of it was because I didn´t admit my own insecurity in these matters, and felt others, who thought differently, as a threat, although in reality most of them were emotionally neutral or even positively interested to my way of thinking (of course there were, and still is, also hostile exceptions).

[Nefastos]

Academic practices can be suffocating for occultists with certain personalities, but often it is also about one´s pride.

That is very true! I'd even say whenever one feels a certain attitude or ideology extremely annoying, he should always stop to think if it mirrors something of his own personal shortcomings.

There are many, perhaps all, possible forms of misunderstanding present in the world. Why we hate some of those so ardently, but not the others? Exactly because we ourselves are insecure in those areas we loath in others, & in some or other way those people whose error we see so clearly are manifesting the side of ourselves where we make our cardinal mistakes. Everyone hates but his own shadow, other errors fail to get so much emotion out of us.

I have pondered many times how much it might change myself for the better if I'd manage to get through the academic demands I find so absurd, thus conquering my own personal vice of impatience & insecurities considering my place in a modern society, &c.

I also mentioned that an important attribute of true thinking is that it is creative and not repeating. Another as important attribute would be that it should be able to deconstruct our own mind in a coherent way: able to let go of ideas that are less than optimal, although there's always some grain of truth in every possible mindset.

[Sebomai]

I have a great deal of respect for thinking, in general, in its many, many manifestations. Hence the choice of my brotherhood name. In Edmund Husserl's philosophy, noema refers to the objects that appear to our consciousness and noesis refers to the act of cogitating, in any way, shape, or form, that takes place in relation to those objects. Hence, noesis can be as simple a form of thinking as mere perception, or as lofty as the Threefold Key of atma/buddhi/manas thinking. As a matter of fact, and this is taking it a little further than what I've read in Husserl yet, but I'd say one act of noesis can be a noema on a deeper level, as our thoughts and feelings can always be observed by a higher process of thought behind those more surface thoughts, in a very Buddhist way.

What this means is that the also Buddhist notion of our thoughts creating the world we live in is very valid. While both many interpreters of Husserl's philosophy claim he was setting up a system of transcendental idealism so extreme that it denied the reality of an external world, and some misinterpretations of Buddhism have claimed the same about that, it's more accurate to say that the world as we know it and experience it is created by our thoughts. And the high goals we aspire to, unity, universal Love, even purified hatred, our thoughts can lead us closer to or farther away from those things quite easily. Heaven and Hell are found in our noetic processes, the act of cogitating for ourselves a Heaven or a Hell out of the external world that is presented to us. That's a mighty power indeed.

I have to agree with what Fra. Nefastos has been saying about our shortcomings and the things that bother us, by the way. I have an old saying, I firmly believe in. "You are what you hate." If you can find what you hate most, you are either exactly that in your blind spots about yourself or you hate it because it points to your most fundamental weaknesses, and that can be unbearable even for very advanced, evolved individuals.

Hopefully this post elucidates some of the concerns we've been dealing with rather than further obscuring them!

[Insanus]

I also mentioned that an important attribute of true thinking is that it is creative and not repeating. Another as important attribute would be that it should be able to deconstruct our own mind in a coherent way: able to let go of ideas that are less than optimal, although there's always some grain of truth in every possible mindset.

I feel that thinking is "a hinderance", but I think that the way to get rid of thought is mostly, well, thinking. Only by somehow effectively proving that thinking doesn't make sense, or is not necessary it becomes honest (&possible) to leave thinking behind naturally. It's not just about using language of course, abstract thinking processes should also go in the name of completeness. Nothing kills thought as well as truth. "Grain of truth" is true, but one might say that every possible mindset is completely true what comes to thoughts, and it's the person doing the thinking who needs to change in a way that'd make his feelings & associations & actions "one with the world", which is again a claim which makes sense only in certain conditions from a certain point of view. That's why coherence is the only thing that matters. "Being honest" and "trying to love", means nothing else.
Coherence is Unity. Grain of truth is grain of coherence!
Not regardless of point of view, but just spesifically from my current one, with a tiny bit of humor.