I believe that stressful thoughts (wrong beliefs) can be likened to the ticking of a time bomb. Each time we experience a stressful thought, it is an indication that we need to go into inquiry so that we may question it. Over the years, society has learned to suppress emotions and block-out painful thoughts or those thoughts which are deemed to be unacceptable to our moral integrity. Each time we experience a particular stressful thought, or a related stressful thought, it can be likened to another tick of the time bomb.
Complexes
In actual fact, the analogy of a time bomb in the mind is better suited to what I see as being the source of wants: complexes. Complexes are clusters of related thoughts that become connected in the mind in order to facilitate retrieval later on. Anyone who is familiar with memory recall techniques will understand the power of association when it comes to developing a powerful memory. The mind stores information by determining a correlation between a new thought and existing thoughts. Eventually, through continuous anxiety, complexes can become strong and varied in terms of association between different thoughts.
The Time bomb will Eventually Explode
Eventually, time will run out and that time bomb will explode in some way. This might be experienced in the form of a sickness, nervous breakdown, marriage failure, criminal conviction or perhaps just an awkward, difficult or embarrassing situation which could have been simply avoided.
When we fail to heed the warnings that our mind and emotions give us – we are ignoring that ticking time bomb in our mind. In reality, there could be several of these veritable time bombs, waiting to go off when we least expect them to. This situation could take years and years of preparation to culminate in that one, devastating incident to take place. When I say “preparation”, I’m talking about wrong expectations (false hopes), poor decisions, and deceit and so on.
Eventually, the pressure of life will bear down on you and literally shock you into the realisation that the beliefs you held onto so tightly for so long – have brought nothing but pain and misery to yourself and perhaps to those around you. Life throws us “curve balls” in the form of events that show us that we were unprepared for the unexpected. There is something about suffering which seems to have the effect of forcing us to let go of certain long-held ideals – to the point that we are willing to relinquish our hold on the most deep-set and proud convictions.
Inquiry provides us with a means of “collapsing time” by listening to what our heart has been trying to tell us all along. Perhaps it enables us to avoid going through certain painful situations. I don’t believe that it is a means of avoiding so-called negative circumstances and is certainly not a tool by which we can assert complete control over our lives. This is not a quick affirmation we can make or an obligation to fulfil or a sentiment to embrace. No, this is a process that we need to go through: four questions and a turnaround. We need to ask if something is true, if it’s absolutely true, what life is like with the thought, and finally, what life would be like without the thought. This is then followed by the turnaround, which the four questions have prepared us for, so that it is as true as or truer than the thought we are questioning.
The Irony of Anxiety
The irony of anxiety is that anxious people develop an expectation for bad things to happen in their life. For this reason, they are more likely to anticipate negative circumstances arising from seemingly innocent occurrences. But rather than putting a person into a position of control, the desire to control circumstances results in worry, incessant planning and a desperate need for things to go a certain way. The more we worry about things – the less control we have over what happens in our life. So it seems that anticipating negative circumstances with a view of controlling the outcome – is an exhaustive and futile task. Rather than becoming responsible, worry simply makes us irresponsible. Byron Katie often says, “If you want to suffer on purpose – get a plan!” This message echoes the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle, the author of the bestselling book, The Power of Now.
Principles and Formulas
Religious and self-help teaching seeks to identify these ticking time bombs of the mind so that we can deal with them. But the problem is that the provision of principles and formulas does little in relation to our being able to defuse these potentially explosive and damaging thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and desires.
Releasing and Inquiry
Thankfully, through releasing and inquiry we have a means of being able to detect these wrong beliefs; we are then able to let go of the emotions and underlying wants, in the moment, so that we can experience peace. Then, if we are not able to question the wrong beliefs in that moment, we can write them down so that we can question them later.
Writing down Stressful Thoughts
Byron Katie says that when we write down our beliefs, it is like hitting the pause button on our minds. We are able to freeze time, in a sense, when we write down our stressful thoughts. Therefore, even if we forget to question our thoughts, if we have written them down, we can question our thoughts when we check our notes at a later time.
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