No Thought, Thought, Thoughtlessness

Osho refers to Three levels of thought.  In some ways I think they map to the 3 gunas –  Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas nature of the individual. The Tri-guna appear prominently in the discourse of Krishna to Arjuna upon the battlefield of Kurukshetra, that is the backdrop for the Bhagavad Gita.

The first level, Osho says, is the state of No-Thought. This level is basically below the thinking capacity.  In my view, a highly Tamasic person or lower end of Rajasic person kind of falls into this category. At this an individual pretty much takes orders and acts on the order. He / She is ready to fight, ready to go to war. He/She is in a state of war. In the Gita, Duryodhana is this level. He is ready to go for war.

The second level, he says, is the state of Thought.  In my view, a highly Rajasic person or a lower end of Sattwic person perhaps would fall into this level. Osho says a person who thinks can waver, because thought implies wavering.  In the Gita, Arjuna is in this state/level and that is why he says ‘he wants to look. he wants to observe..understand..’ Person in such state will not be able to fight.

The third state, is the state of Thoughtlessness. In my view, a highly Sattwic person or person who has transcended the three Gunas would fall into this level. At this level, there are no thoughts. In the Gita, Krishna is in this state/level.

Thoughtlessness and No-Thought appear to be the same, but are fundamentally different. Thoughtless is a state where an individual realizes the futility of thought and transcends thought – goes beyond thought.

Thought helps to understand the futility of things, the futility of life, of love, of family, of wealth, of society, of war. Thought shows us how everything is futile, but eventually thought can show that thinking itself is futile.  At that point, one moves into a state of Thoughtlessness. Thoughtlessness appears very similar to thought, but it has completely different quality.

In a state of Thoughtlessness one becomes child-like. When a person becomes a saint, he becomes child-like. The saint’s eyes become again pure and innocent.

A man who is in a state of no-thought hides within himself the energy of thought. He can think, he is able to think. The man who lives in a state of thoughtlessness has gone beyond all thoughts,  and has reached a state of meditation, a state of Samadhi.

Implicit in this, is the message that action performed in a state of thought, when it is desire driven or outcome driven,  we end up associating the action with attributes – good or bad, happy or sad, sin or virtuous,  moral and immoral, right or wrong, gain or loss, etc.. In actuality it is the thought that has these qualities not the action itself. We tend to associate the quality with the action, but it is not the action but the thought which gives rise to these attributes.

The issue is not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad. The question is ‘Who are you?’ ‘What are you?’ ‘What is your state of mind?’  The emphasis is on thought not action. When we start looking at the outcome of an action i.e. as victory or defeat, gain or loss as different, that is when there is a problem. When we  look at victory/defeat, gain/loss, good/bad as equal or we are neutral to them, then we are focused on the purity of the thought and cause. This is a difficult concept and needs some deep reflection. The Indian scripture do not stop at just actions as something natural for humans, they go much further than the action, and focus on the mind and thought as being accountable and responsible.

Thus verse 38 of Chapter of 2 Bhaagavd Gita says ‘Even if you do not desire heaven, nor a kingdom, you should understand that happiness-unhappiness, gain-los and victory-defeat – all are equal. Only then can you be ready for war. With this attitude, which is the right attitude, you can go to war without incurring into sin.

The Demonic

When you think of war, what images come to mind? Perhaps you visualize an army of uniformed soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles traveling in convoy. However, the standoff this time is between a Western army bound by the Geneva Convention and Western values on human rights, and an enemy that includes hundreds of children.

France, which now has around 2,500 troops on the ground, plunged headfirst into the conflict in Mali two weeks ago, after the Islamist groups that have controlled the nation’s northern half since last year began an aggressive push southward. The French soldiers are equipped with night vision goggles, anti-tank mines and laser-guided bombs. However, their enemy includes the hundreds of children, some as young as 11, who have been drafted into the rebel army.

The United Nations children’s agency said late last year that it had been able to corroborate at least 175 reported cases of child soldiers in northern Mali, bought from their impoverished parents for between $1,000 and $1,200 per child. Malian human rights officials put the total number of children recruited by the Islamists considerably higher at 1,000 – and that was before the French intervention.

An estimated 250,000 boys and girls (according to current UN estimates) are taking part in wars around the world at any given time over the last two decades.

These children are already victims. What future do they have?  What kind of an impact such children will have on the world at large. What kind of a world are we leaving behind for the future generation? Who is getting away with funding 1000-1200$ per child? How are they able to recruit thousands of children? How can there be 250,000 children engaged in war? What sense can we make out this?

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is in a very similar situation, he had to deal with a situation where he had to fight his own cousins and teachers. Krishna’s advise to Arjuna is to fight them but fight without hatred, fight them with love.

A person can be in 3 states – no-thought, thought and thoughtlessness. A person in no-thought is ready to fight, he is just waiting to go (so is the state of Duryodhana), a person in a state of thought is torn between right and wrong (such is the state of Arjuna), and a person in a state of thoughtlessness, one who has transcended all thoughts and realizes that thought itself is useless is able to fight, but fight with love and compassion (such is the state of Krishna).  A child is in a state of no-thought, a saint is in a state of thoughtlessness, is child-like. Both on the surface appear similar.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks at great length on the 26 noble qualities for spiritual development and liberation; and  the demonic qualities that lead to bondage.  In verse 16.6, He says there are two types of men in this world: the divine and the demonic. In  verse 16.7,  He says the demonic do not know the meaning of right action, and do not know when to refrain from acting, and in verse 16.9 He says, feeble of intellect, such self-ruined men cling to their beliefs and commit countless atrocities. They are enemies of mankind, devoted to its destruction.  Such people are in delusion, by the theory of Karma, are in a downward spiral.

Hate the sin, not the sinner.