Thought Pollution

By Reza Ganjavi

When she sat on the train it kicked in. Thought began entering areas it wasn’t meant for. Perhaps that's a simplistic way of putting it and a deeper description would be, that it started reviewing the events of the day, the relationships, how she had to handle the new job of righting a long-term wrong in the department – how she would be perceived, etc. – fair enough. But unless one thinks very clearly and objectively -- sees its own movement, empties itself by seeing its every move (writing is a great way for me otherwise it can be too big of an elephant), looking at every thought that arise – thought cannot be free from its own limitations. Also, it is important to see how the nature of thought itself is divisive and fragmentary because it’s based on limited experience, within the sphere of the known.

At a different dimension altogether we had the magic of the moment – a cliché perhaps but an accurate one. A magic that can be trusted, as intelligence needs to be. To go to work the next day, fresh, free, having died to the past, seeing everyone as it’s for the first time, and this helps them as well. It helps them be in the moment and start anew instead of being stuck in the roots of thought pollution with its incessant image making loops.

One cannot force images to end, but can quietly observe how the mind makes images, and comes a great philosopher, J. Krishnamurti* and throws a monkey wrench at the whole status quo: can one live without any psychological images? It’s a question to be explored. I have explored it and can tell you, yes. It’s phenomenal. It’s more than a nicety – it’s a necessity. To be responsible is to have no image – is one of the wise phrases of him which points to a great truth.

*He spent a lifetime shedding light on dark corners of human habits and talked about the importance of finding truth – but of course, some of the people in charge of his official work, like the Executive Director of his American Foundation (KFA), Jaap Sluijter, stepped on truth like it was a cheap rug by propagating what he knew was false, as truth – and that was not the only mess he brought about. But that veers into a different topic, which is on my mind but will be emptied with a big publication hopefully soon.