3,000 Thoughts

Psychologists calculate that the average human being has over 3,000 thoughts per day. Enlightened awareness also has 3,000 thoughts per day. What's the difference?

We chase our thoughts, assuming that someone is thinking them. Every day, we try to string 3,000 disappearing drops of dew into an I. This is a great waste of energy, because the thinker dissolves with every thought.

Whatever we think the problem is, the problem is thinking. Drop the mind. Listen beyond thought. The rose never worried about opening. It just opened.

St. Paul writes, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." I doubt that these words refer to a First Century rabbi named Jesus. If they did, then Paul would be giving himself up to spirit possession! No, these words are about the Christ-consciousness shining inside us deeper than mind, as the sun shines beyond the clouds. Paul's words mean: It is no longer necessary to identify with this separate little I who worries so much. I can surrender, I can dissolve in the boundless expanse of Christ-consciousness.

Christ flowers through inner silence. There, beyond thought, is our resurrection and our life.