The Greatest Weight--Thinking as Way-Making

A week ago, while I was on the Madrid metro, I had a thought that became clear for the first time, and it made my mind heavy. I mean, the feeling it gave me was similar to being lightheaded. Thank goodness I was close to my stop, all I wanted to do was go home and sit this thought through. It could have made me sick. On the metro, the seats were all occupied so I was standing up, with this feeling of mental vertigo. The idea was causing an uproar in my mind, and it kept repating itself with such force that it put all other thoughts to a halt. This is what the idea said:

"You are responsible for all the ideas, all the thoughts and all the streams of thoughts that are concieved of in your mind. Ideas are forces. These stream of forces emanate from a source, which is you, yourself. You are responsible for the course these ideas take. Your are responsible for their way. You are a way-maker. The course these forces take affect the world. They change the world. Do not think that your are not responsible for the course of your thoughts. You are condemned with this responsiblity."

But, I said to myself, what about the thoughts that are taken in through my circumstances. It may be a book someone lends me, a statement sprayed in graffiti, or one of the ideas my age in history holds as common sense. It may be the thoughts spoken to me by someone I love, or in lectures spoken by those I think wise. If these ideas force their way into my mind, am I still responsible for them?

The idea spoke to me: "But that's why there's faith. Faith is passion. But faith is also confidence. Faith is Self-Reliance, but not a reliance on that self that your peers know all too well. It's not a faith in Michael Grafals, the individual. It is not faith in a single atom apart from the universe, that thinks it holds itself in place of the Absolute. No, this is a vulgarization of self-reliance, which is faith as confidence. Self-reliance is faith in the self as interconnected with God, or as the daoist and buddhist think, the Universe. It is the self that knows (but through the paradox of faith, never knows) it has a relationship with God. It is this self-reliance, this faith as confidence in its own way-making, that will censor the ever-revolving tumult of ideas that come in through circumstances. But your not closing yourself off from circumstances. You are aware of your responsibility to the forces of your mind, and you recieve the world of circumstance responsibly."

Can you see how this idea is the greatest weight? Doesn't this make you want to stop thinking all together? Just think, every idea that comes through your mind you are in some sense responsible for. Throughout the course of your life, you'll be judged for your thoughts. An action is not just when you perform a physical action in the world, or say something that will have consequence, you are perfoming mental actions every second of your life. You are making choices between one thought and the next. Even your emotions, something that some forms of popular wisdom has cheapened, making us believe that their not under our control, yes, they too we are responsible for.

Which way will your thoughts follow? Are your thoughts in harmony with your world? Is their course the right course? Are these stream of thoughts conducive to a better world? Think responsibly, for you are all way-makers, whether you beleive it or not.