With thought control we usually connect the ambition to control the thoughts of other people, usually an entire population, by a central organization or administration. The concept is negatively associated by dystopian novels and movies, but also by political activity that already took place or is happening right now. However, our thoughts can only be controlled by an outside force if we neglect our responsibility to take control of our own thoughts. This task is what this article is about.
We often maneuver our thoughts like a kayak in a raging river, let the water carry us along, wash around us. And we react with our thinking to everything that surrounds us and pushes us, like the flowing water pushes the kayak. This ride is full of adventure, full of adrenaline, it is fast, we dive into the force of the river and the water, and we use our thinking to avoid drowning and to not collide with anything. But we also surrender to the force of the water, the course of the river. We are always driven by outside forces. We decide our direction only within strict limitations, and we consider the rivers features when doing so. That is what our thinking usually does during every day life.
We hear words and translate them into thoughts. We repeat those thoughts and make them our own. In school we are trained to learn like this. That prepares us for society, where we are expected to choose a place and find our way around. Additionally we are also taught to combine two or more of the thoughts that we previously learned into a new thought with a formally correct procedure. That is considered a more advanced skill compared to just translating words into thoughts, keeping a record and repeating when asked. If that’s all we use our thinking for, then we will not find many thoughts of our own. We would limit ourselves to the abilities that a computer can also achieve in a different way. The belief, that those two tasks sum up the human ability of thinking, is a fallacy. From a materialistic perspective it seems like an obvious conclusion, because with this worldview the nature of thinking remains inaccessible, hidden and impossible to comprehend, in the same way that life itself remains a mystery.
Our thinking cannot just repeat thoughts that were conveyed with words. When we are born we are not even able to translate words into matching thoughts. First we must learn a language. Only then can words guide us to the thoughts that the talking person is thinking. Our thinking processes all perceptions. As soon as we get an impression from a sensory organ, we begin to think about it. When we are grown up, this mostly happens subconsciously. Known impressions our thinking processes automatically, and we are often not even aware of it. But when we perceive something unknown, then our thinking starts looking for an explanation. When we observe a little closer and try to get to the nature of something, attempt to uncover its relation with the rest of the world, only then do we really start to think. That takes time and patience. And also practice, which we do not get when we only repeat thoughts. Often we only observe shortly and then cover it up with a finished thought that we learned previously. That is what we have to do in almost all exams that we take during life. There is no time for much thinking in most exams. The task is to repeat a thought that was previously given to us. And we transfer this method on almost all aspects of our daily life, build our entire Weltbild with this method. But we should get rid of this habit.
If we accomplish that, then we will reconquer the control of our own thinking. If we fail to do so, someone outside of us will continue to control our thinking. The patient observation of simple objects combined with pondering about their nature, their origin and meaning for several minutes is a good method to practice the self-driven steering of our thoughts. With this exercise we can now try to get our kayak on calm waters. We create a lake with a mirror-smooth surface on which we want to take our kayak. There we can relax. We are free. We can take a breath. Look around in all directions. Observe closely. We can now use our own strength to set out in any direction we choose. We can pause and listen. We have again the option to hear silent noises, that were not recognizable on the raging river. We can find out who we are, can explore the world by ourselves, find our own ideas and create our own conception.