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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 21 - Page 4 |
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Recipe for actions When we act on feeling or impulse, we should think about what we are doing, or about what we are about to do. It is the attempt to avoid thought that has the unexpected result that it opens the mind to daydreaming and to what has been called considering: to careless thought about ourselves and what we want. Whenever the mind has no work to do, or is not doing its proper work, it lapses into considering. This is the form of thought that is harmful -- spiritually and even psychologically. The problem is that this pointless process, with its continual scheming, often to obtain things we want for ourselves, is easily mistaken for the planning and information gathering that surrounds intentional activity ... but if our aim is for growth in spirituality, it is this scheming and considering which has to be replaced by intentional activity. If we persist in acting intentionally, this very fact changes the content of the mind. The same principle applies whether the intentional activity is outer or inner; whether it is ordinary physical work, study, prayer, meditation and worship in all its forms, or some task involving caring for others. It can also apply to creative work carried out to some specific purpose, but it must be clear that self-indulgent self-expression in the arts simply becomes considering. The same is true of management and administrative activities that are not carried out with clear intention. Whenever the mind is not being used for something specific, it becomes a devil's playground of aimless thoughts, and these aimless thoughts leave traces, new or modified memories, that change the content of that mind for the worse. At the same time, the choice of task also helps the selective process. Spiritual scholarship and prayer, for example, equally help move the content of the mind more in a spiritual direction, whereas daydreaming, or self-indulgent considering about the same things, moves the content instead toward shallow imitations of the same. Work for others in any but the most abject forms helps to weaken the hold of considering over us, and so on.
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