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THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING
individual is bound to his body, as long as he is tied to cerebral consciousness which preoccupies him wholly, and until transcendental consciousness is awakened in him, thought has its utility, and it is not possible to do away with it altogether.
Two kinds of people are free from thinking. One who has attained direct perception, does not resort to thinking; nor does an idiot. The enlightened one does not have to think because he clearly perceives what is. The idiot or the foolish person does not know how to think; he is simply incapable of thought.
The master said to the servant, "Here are two tins of vegetable oil. Hide this oil somewhere in the garden." The servant took away the tins and returned after some time to say, "Master, I have hidden the oil in the garden; now where shall I keep the empty tins?" The master exclaimed, "What are you talking about? How and where did you hide the oil?" "Master!" said the servant, "I dug a pit near a tree and poured the oil into the pit and covered it with the earth. It is perfectly concealed; no stranger would be able to discover it. Now, what am I to do with the tins?"
The man who does not know how to think, one who is totally devoid of the faculty of thought, is a perfect idiot-he can pour the oil into a pit, but he can never utilize it. He can hide the oil but does not know where to hide the tins.
Thus two kinds of men enjoy freedom from thinking-the enlightened one and the ignoramus. What a juxtaposition! And yet such remarkable juxtapositions do occur. Only two kinds of persons remain unmoved by honour or disgrace; the entirely wise (who has freed himself from all passions) and the perfectly foolish. One wonders how the two can have anything in common. In a person freed from all passions, all disparities cease; his whole disposition undergoes a transformation. On the other hand, an idiot has no capacity to discriminate between honour and disgrace; he just cannot distinguish between the two. Therefore he, like the wise one but for a different reason, remains unaffected. What an irony! What a remarkable coincidence!
Thinking is an important factor in life. On the one hand we recognize the importance of thought; on the other we practise meditation for the attainment of a condition which is free from thought. Are we thus not caught in a paradox, an illogicality? However, we must not lose sight of the fact that though our ultimate objective is to achieve complete freedom from thought, such an achievement is not possible at the moment. It is a great illusion to think that a man can enter the transcendental state beyond thought the moment he starts practising meditation. If anything, during meditation the flow of thoughts becomes all the more powerful. Even thoughts which ordinarily never enter the mind, surface up
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