Everything not created by nature has been created by thought, for better or worse. Cathedrals and wars, works of art and genocides, great literature and the atomic bomb, the most beautiful verses and social injustice.
And what is thought? A reaction of memory to a sensory impression coming from the external world. It is mechanical, automatic, compulsive, and unintelligent.
Intelligence is to understand that thought is not intelligent.
Since memory is limited—conditioned by previous knowledge, old, because it belongs to time—thought is, for the same reasons, old, fragmented, conditioned, conflictive, and limited.
Even so, thought interprets reality because it cannot observe it. It masks it with a meaning that comes from the past; it hides it, it denies it.
Every egocentric thought separates us from the reality that unfolds. The thing and what I think about the thing are two completely different facts.
It is impossible to connect with reality through thoughts, and the deepest reality of the human being—consciousness—can only manifest in the absence of egocentric thought.
In the evolutionary process, egocentric thought must come to an end. Therefore, freedom is not “freedom of thought” but rather, “freedom from thought.”
The direct perception of reality is the gateway to true freedom.
