Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

identification with the totality of the world is just a
beginning of mansion-exploration.
The next level down after the gross external world
percept is the world of thought, which is part of what
the Jnanis (Self-Realized persons in the eastern
traditions) call the subtle body. When we have
practiced meditation long enough, we can actually
watch thoughts come and go, as external waifs, subtle
entities, much like tiny ghosts that are translucent,
the size of a nickel floating around inside the visual
field around us.
These are universal thoughts; these are the
thoughts of the human race and our culture. These are
thoughts like “chair,” “right and wrong,” “should and
should not,” “atom,” “molecule,” “racial identity,”
“dog or cat,” “husband,” “wife,” and “family.” All
these thoughts float around throughout our culture,
through our sense of presence, inside of our bodies,
and some come to rest in our brain where they take
root and we think, evaluate and judge, and create an
external world versus an internal world, me versus not
me.
Thus thought creates the apparent external world,
it divides the YOU into me versus the not me or world.
Sooner or later you begin to understand that
thinking is the problem, and that you have to sink