The Independent Mind

the thinkers often go mad and the mad often start thinking.

e run in every possible direction, we take a thousand and one measures and make a thousand and one arrangements: we do anything and everything, but all our running around is nothing more than an attempt to avoid death.

all seeds should become what they are supposed to be, what is hidden within should become manifest.

If what we think and understand is wron

what we think and understand is wrong, the end result of our whole life is bound to be wrong.

thing you can do about it. Someone who starts appraising it beforehand will be able to do something about it. Then something will surely happen in his

How am I living? Will something substantial happen by this? Will I gain anything out of it? Will I reach anywhere by it? Will it put an end to my running? Will it eliminate my suffering? Will it dispel darkness? Will it destroy death?

Your thoughts are not yours – you have gathered them together. Sometimes in a dark room, a beam of light comes from the roof and you can see millions of dust particles floating in that beam. When I look into you I see the same phenomenon: millions of dust particles. You call them thoughts. They are moving in you and out of you. From one head they enter another and on they go. They have their own life.

A thought is a thing; it has its own existence. When a person dies, all his mad thoughts are released immediately and they start finding shelter somewhere or other. They immediately enter those who are nearby. They are like germs, they have their own life. Even when you are alive you go on dispersing your thoughts all around you. When you talk, of course you throw your thoughts into others. But when you are silent, you also throw thoughts around. They are not yours; that is the first thing.

A man of positive reasoning will discard all thoughts that are not his own. They are not authentic, he hasn’t found them through his own experience. He has accumulated them from others, they are borrowed. They are dirty, and have been in many hands and in many heads. A man of thinking does not borrow, he likes to have fresh thoughts of his own. If you are positive, and look at beauty, truth, goodness, flowers; if you become capable of seeing even in the darkest night that the morning is approaching – you will become capable of thinking.

You can then create your own thoughts. A thought that is created by you is really full of potential; it has a power of its own.

We run in every possible direction, we take a thousand and one measures and make a thousand and one arrangements: we do anything and everything, but all our running around is nothing more than an attempt to avoid death.