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HOW TO THINK (3)
minimum the element of destructiveness in thought; that is why we are posing the question, "What is right thinking?"
The question involves the purification of the mind, of thought itself. By emptying the mind of all thought, by maintaining our balance, we can make our thinking constructive and creative. We can thus reduce the element of destructiveness in it, whereas thought, which has in it the seed of contradiction and conflict, ever sullies the mind and destroys its purity. As the mind becomes silent with the emptying of thought, it progressively grows more subtle and refined; all its incongruities and contradictions gradually dissolve. There is no other way to achieve this purification.
There is the old legend of an extraordinary blanket which existed two thousand and five hundred years ago. It cost a fortune -more than a hundred thousand sovereigns. Why so costly? Because it was an air-conditioned blanket-it cooled in summer and warmed in winter. It was cleaned, not with water but with fire. The blanket was flung into the fire and all the dirt would go out of it. Unless it was so treated, it would not be clean. Similarly, the dirt of accumulated thought could not be got rid of through water, nor could one thought be purified by another; nor intellect or logic could make thought clean. For clearer thinking, for the purification of the mind, thought must be consigned to the fire of emptiness--a condition of total freedom from thought. Then all the refuse would clear of itself, and the mind will become fresh and creative. It would become constructive, imbued with faith, energy and light.
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Thinking born of fear is ever negative and destructive. A fearful man is incapable of right thinking; fear dulls his mind and heart; his thinking becomes blunted. It would be idle to expect a fear-ridden brain to function normally. Such a brain cannot think constructively. The first condition for sane thinking is total freedom from fear. The mind must be absolutely fearless, and the brain, and indeed the whole environment, must be free from fear. Only in the right atmosphere will sane thinking become possible. A man oppressed by fear cannot think straight.
Why are you afraid? Why is man ridden by fear? In fact fear is the outcome of wrong thinking. A man's individuality is determined by his thought. He has accepted certain ideas and beliefs and the whole environment is vitiated by fear. A man who has understood even a little bit of spirituality, whose dry and anguished existence has been even slightly touched by the grace of religion, cannot but be fearless. He who is not fearless cannot be spiritual or religious; he cannot be sane. Fear is the root of all disease, of all conflict and of unspirituality. Can a fearful man experience truth? People talk of soul and of God endlessly, but they live in illusion. How can a man ridden by fear know anything of highly subtle and
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