We function in (and “as”) time. Time involves distinctive patterns in sequences. Thought/thinking is of time; thought/thinking is time. Distinctive, disparate patterns in (and “as”) time allows for conflict, friction, and discord to take place. Needless to say, a lot of friction and disharmony takes place in today’s world; just look at the newspapers to see plenty of that going on.
There is a nameless, sacred timelessness that exists at (or “as”) another dimension completely. It is not of conflictive patterns; it is not of sequences of discord; it is not of fragments involving disorder. It is coherent and is of a harmonious whole, beyond mere conflict and chaos.
Organized religions cannot take you there; organized religions are based on achievement, progress, and movement to goals (in time)… all involving calculated (man-made) patterns. That namelessness is beyond the cause-effect parameters of patterns; it is not some causally induced “effect achieved” or end result.
Thought/thinking, though oftentimes very necessary in functioning, cannot take you to that otherness. Thought can play all kinds of tricks but it cannot take you to where it cannot function… to where it has never functioned (and to where it never will function). (Thought/thinking can easily imagine that it is of wholeness and that it is in great silence and in the special quietness of “not being thought”… while — all the while — it is deceiving itself.) Thought/thinking is always conditioned, always in (or part of) a cause-effect sequence, always reactionary, always rather virtual, always fragmentary, and always rather secondhand. Well, that’s enough thinking for now.
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
“Thought/thinking is always conditioned”…well my friend that’s a hard habit to break.
Look at what’s happening around us. The cause and effect of our condition. ๐
Yes, Kym, we exist in quite a robotic, mechanistic-minded world; only all too many of us think and feel that we are free. ๐ It would be wonderful if people really saw the extent of their conditioning.
I hear ya Tom. You too stay safe and sane! ๐
You are right Tom – our thinking is always conditioned – in order to escape we have to enter that other ‘field’ the field of NOW…. It is a both and thing the way we experience time…. but I think the real time holds past present future in NOW!
Well, it’s not an escape. Endless football games and movies are escapes.
๐ Yes, past, present, and future are in the NOW.
Beautiful macro and Great post, Tom
Thanks, Leyla! ๐ Stay safe and aware.
Gorgeous insect! Love its green coloring.
Thanks, SoyBend! It wasn’t easy to spot; it blended in the foliage quite nicely. ๐
To stay in the present moment, with the sacred Now, is challenging when there is so much in this world that pulls you away. Conditioning is also something that is hard to shake. But, we do grow with the attempt. Great post, Tom, and love the photograph too.
Well, the sacred is not the present moment; it’s beyond that primitive limitation. You can’t shake or dispel conditioning; it is what you are. The run-of-the-mill psychological “you” must go for something non-conditioned to exist. Thanks much about the post and pic! Stay safe! ๐
Fair points. Still, I like to think I can shed some of the conditioning, at least to a point.
Interesting post Tom. I like the Pale Green Assassin Bug lying in wait with his bait. He is like the Boy Scouts … always prepared. Alas, it’s too bad the Boy Scouts organization is bankrupt and sordid things happened to the boys who donned those uniforms and got their Eagle Scout merit badges … but I digress. How I would like to live in a simple society and a world where everything does not have some ugly story attached to it. The olden days when we just laid on our back and gazed up at the sky and tried to figure out what the cloud formations were – an animal perhaps? Life was simple and not a continual thought process to dissect good from bad, lies from truth – no fact checking anything. Maybe we were more gullible then or we just accepted everything as truth. Maybe because back then it was.
Ah, i never cared much for the boy scouts; though it did have some good values in it, it trained kids to follow orders and to be proud of medals pinned on their uniforms. It prepared them to function in the military and to follow orders (with violence). Not for me.
We were dumb rock crude (in the past) and we are (worldwide) even dumber (and more superficial) now. Environmentally, the world is a mess (and it is a reflection of our love of fossil fuels and distant vacations and such). I’m so glad that i paid attention to my premonitions as a kid and that we, as adults, didn’t have any kids.
Stay safe!
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I found the similar between your post and Krishnamurti’s teachings. That’s interesting ! Do you know about him ?
Beautiful blog