Where our thoughts come from?

I could not sleep last night and was observing my thoughts.

[U]It is funny[/U], but it appears to me all the times that while i"m observing the thoughts, they come from the right side of the brain, then I observe them, and let them go to the left side of the brain and they disappear. What and interesting illusion!

Where do you think your thoughts are coming from?

It is a common misconception to think thoughts are coming from the brain. The brain merely registers a thought and the associated area in the brain lights up. It is much like flicking a light switch and the light comes on, because an electric current passes into the bulb.

In this case the electric current is the prana and the source of the electricity is consciousness. The consciousness produces a movement, this movement turns into prana and then the prana lights up the brain. Hence to answer the question the origin of all thoughts is from consciousness. In consciousness they rise and in consciousness they return.

Funny, I couldn’t sleep last night as well! :slight_smile: But I tried to observe my breathing and also found sort of illusion. That in fact I don’t feel a “breath” - I just feel changes of temperature and pressure of contracting/relaxing muscles in rib cage and belly… Funny thing to see how your mind adds images to your physical sensations…

Interesting with this left/right location(?) of thoughts. Was there something specific about those thoughts? E.g. images? Voices? Feelings? Did they change after going to the left side?

[QUOTE=Pawel;32080] Did they change after going to the left side?[/QUOTE]

Yes, thats what amazed me even more…they disapered in the left side, just like a fog on the lake!

[QUOTE=CityMonk;32128]Yes, thats what amazed me even more…they disapered in the left side, just like a fog on the lake![/QUOTE]

Sounds you found good “spot” for meditation (this place from which you see thoughts disappearing). I tried to see whether my thoughts also go from side to side but no. They just grow in size and slow down.

From what my guru told me, I have constructed a little different model. First of all, brain is an organ, the thinking instrument of the physical body. So is manas for the astral and buddhi for the causal body. Being the subtlest of them, buddhi interpenetrates manas and together they interpenetrate the brain. The sense impulses from the five senses become the raw material. They flow via the network of nerves around the spinal cord and end up at the bottom of the brain, close to medulla oblangata. A valve called taluka, puts them in a linear sequence and hands them over to manas. Manas carries them across the rear brain where long-term memory is located and over the top of the brain where short-term memory is. Prana is ordinarily contaminated but provides eergy to manas and buddhi.

While passing through, the incoming impulses pickup near-identical memory patterns from previous experiencing and knowing. But these patterns are also soaked in past emotions. Eventually they land up in the brain’s frontal lobe which acts as a registration area where the impulses, memory patterns, emotions are churned around by manas and buddhi.That process produces a thought. It contains its own vibratory frequency depending on which constituent was predominant. One thought doesn’t create cognition, hence while buddhi uses its logic for churning, manas transports them back and forth drawing more patterns from memory and storing back “new” patterns. Thought in its essentially coded form gets flushed out from ajna chakra. It is still matter though very rarefied and have life enough to turn the “cause and effect” cycles of karma.

Thoughts create a few other things. They create waves in the astral and causal bodies which Patanjali refers to as chitta-vrutti that puts mind in a perpetual unettled state. Suitable thoughts are also conveyed to the organs of action, like hands and feet. Thoughts build a reservoir in the brain where accumulated judgmental data creates “I” identity and personalized knowledge.

In accomplished Yogis, mainly through pranayama, a bio-physical change takes place. The side passages open for the impulses, to avoid their journey through memory. Such unconditioned impulses create direct perception and no thoughts and get flushed away as impulses that do not last. Yogis can enter samadhi by closing taluka valve, at will, blocking the impulses away from brain, letting prana circulate through the chakras unhindered.