Thinking - Enlightenment - Sansara.

About the associative structure of thinking.

Our thinking takes place in associations. These associations form the links of a chain, which in their entirety constitute our being and make it describable, bundle our made experiences.

The states of the (evaluating) thinking allow basically two possibilities of expression for the respective following associations in the respective following moment of thinking.

Both state expressions (binary imprinting) are related to the respective other in the way that one side of a coin is related to the other. This means in detail:

Starting from the basic pattern of decision possibilities in our being, the two original states are love and fear. All derived individual "decisions" that we make in our thinking, no matter how small they may be, are in turn manifestations of one of these two basic patterns. And find their reflection in the essentials of the universe. Affection, aversion - warm, cold - above, below - in front, behind - beginning, end. This duality pervades the space and the time, is the brazen law which holds together this world, this hologram, "Sansara". It lets the law of cause and effect arise, forms it and keeps it "alive". And the respective two possibilities of decision basically run into opposite directions, no matter how "tiny" they are.

At the beginning of a mental chain - the decision about possibilities (the choice) - there is always the basic question about love and about fear.

So both states can be described mathematically (binary) as "zero" and as "one".

I thought for years. And had so my difficulties to search, to recognize and to describe that state which exists beyond both possibilities of choice.

I want to describe this state - mathematically - as "not-zero and at the same time not-one". That state is found in our consciousness, when we can let our spirit rest completely in the "here and now", have attained perfect consciousness, are "round".

This state of perfect consciousness does not contain any evaluations any more, but is limited purely to the perception. The mental chains of associations, which we form incessantly since the first axons have formed in our bodies, have then come to an end, have ceased to exist. A "stimulus" is then no longer met with a "response". And this state is very difficult to keep permanently - and characterizes what we understand by enlightenment. The strange thing is that "equanimity", pure equanimity, therefore only comes about when we stop looking for it (in the sense of the possibilities of expression within the "One"). Once one has experienced the state of "non-zero and at the same time non-one;" one longs incessantly to experience this again, to become "awake". And this very "longing" is again only an expression of the search for a "beneficial state", within the binary choices. So we remain "in Sansara", although we hope and believe ourselves to be ceaselessly "longing out".

Even the "advanced" observation and awareness of one's own thought flow still leaves one stuck within the system of "judgmental" duality - and thus far from enlightenment. The perception of one's own thought pattern by asking ourselves the question: "What did I just think?", "which thought state (memory) was "beautiful", which one was not?", "how do I create the beautiful states in the long run?" still includes the - more or less unconscious - continuation of the associative thinking, the evaluative experience - and this always limits the pure "perception", the "observation". We are then not (yet) free.

The principle of the flow of thoughts is the principle of life. By forming our chains of associations - also in the heart (there they manifest themselves via longings or dislikes) - we progress, on the staircase of life. We de-evolve.

Un-development - even on a "high" level is still an expression of seeking, of growing, of becoming. We do not "are" then, we "become".


All factors that penetrate to our innermost, every impulse, every stimulus from outside, causes a change in us and includes an influence on our thinking for the respective coming moment. In return, our innermost influences our "outside world". This restlessness in our being, this restlessness of the mental flow, which is again and again on the search for the in each case next moment, marks that, what makes the life as expression of the creation immediately sorrowful. The states of thinking are all "suffering", even if the thoughts are felt by the being as "beautiful" or "pleasant". Because they are transient, characterized by restlessness and always generate new desires or further aversions in us. Therefore, this third state of being cannot be separated and distinguished from "zero and one", from "affection and aversion", from "on and off", than by "not-zero and at the same time not-one;" because it is of a completely different nature. Again: In that state one "is". The "becoming" does not take place.

We all wander on our paths during many eons through our many lives on the - more or less subconscious - search for just that state. This search for "eternal bliss" will not be crowned with success if we limit our being to always wanting to search for and receive only "happiness and joy". If we formulate this wish in us, we always remain arrested in our search for the "one" in our system of thinking, in our being. And "arrested" we are then literally, because we throw ourselves again and again anew into the prison of Sansara, of the "eternal cycle", of arising and passing away. It is the quest for enlightenment that first brings us close to it, through all our many lives - and then stands in our way (in a practical way) of finally achieving it. Our striving only lets us look for and hope for enlightenment - and at the same time prevents us from reaching it towards the "end".

The overcoming of this world happens therefore not by the fact that we know about those possibilities of expression, in our being, but by the fact that we "stop to think", to "want". By this I mean that we stop to form, to willfully form from the respective momentary experienced association in our experience, the following one. All will, each arisen and arising wish, makes us believe in the "freedom of choice", which however is only an apparent freedom. If the affairs of all being are written down in the book of life (and they are on a "metaphysical" level), this means in the last consequence that our only freedom consists in being able to believe that we can make a "free" choice. If we "understand" this realization, we also recognize the sense of those words that we are "already where we want to go". And always have been and always will be. This is the primal ground of hope.

We all experience every day! this state of "not-zero and at the same time not-one". In that immediate, first moment, when we leave our sleep, wake up, in the morning, in that short moment, before our always restless spirit begins anew to chatter away in us, even before we open our eyes, we stand - for a short moment only - in that consciousness. But don't pay attention to it, otherwise the thinking starts...

This is the secret of enlightenment - and it is the hardest, most sublime, "most beautiful" (in the sense of useful), what remains for us to do on the way to the solution. "To do" - without "doing" - because the search is want is compulsion.

Says my associative thinking (preceded by experiencing).