Waves of thought

Buddhism teaches that all things are in a constant state of flux: all is changing, forever. Nothing is very stable in nature. This principle applies to humans as to anything else that exists in the universe. People have not ever, according to this, a steady state, physical or psychological, or a trait that defines us. Moreover, the existence of stable states or traits in people is purely an illusory manifestation of the changing reality.

 Think on this body! A painted puppet with movable limbs, sometimes suffering and covered with sores, full of imaginations, never permanent, always changing. (Dhammapada, 147).

It is in this context that the term Anatman takes perfect sense, as a denial of the existence of a personal soul (Atman) which defines or characterizes us as individual subjects. Anatman is the non-self. The words "I", "my mind", "my being" or "my soul" do not refer, in fact, according to this, to anything stable myself, do not define me as a being different from the rest, because nothing stable defines me. These words are simply agreed terms of convenience which let us refer to entities that we are, changing and unstable humans.

People do not have, then, a fully autonomous existence, because only the absolute (God), which is the constant flow, exists, and we are just immersed in it. We are Anatman. When we speak of ourselves, or our self, or our mind or our consciousness we mean, paradoxically, the component we share with other human beings, which comes and goes and fluctuates, but not so dependent on the individuality of the subjects, which is an illusion, but it does completely independent of that.

The attributes or qualities that usually mean a person do not really belong to him: When the body dies, the higher mental processes (reason, intelligence, the will) do not finish existence, because they do not were possessed strictly by the person, but existed before somehow, and still exist and continue to manifest ("reborn") on other people who are still alive or that come to life. And since mental processes are constantly changing and evolving, beings who are still alive are not exactly the same being who died (Atman), of course, but they are not totally different (Anatman), because basically they are a continuum (the continuum of life) with which died and God (Brahman).

Many people interpret the word "reincarnation" in the sense that there is some "thing" that is reincarnated in concrete, which travels from life to life. But Buddhism does not believe in unchanging entity, a self or a soul that emerges from individual body and survives his death. What provides continuity between successive lives is the flow of thought or consciousness in reality. The thought and consciousness are, in some way, a continuous and preexisting flow that operates in the individual and his particular sensory and experiential. And they made ​​simultaneously on each of the multitude of individuals, so that "moves" alike all the diversity of life and individuals, regardless of their particularities. It's a "flow of reason" or "universal logos" that continually revives in each of us our unpredictable thoughts and variable states of consciousness. In short, thought and consciousness are the central creative principle, as explained the Dalai Lama.

In the Buddhist scriptures there is a clear exemplification of this process of rebirth. The Buddhist Nagasena raised it to the King Milinda in a famous series of answers to questions that the king formulated:

-When someone reborn -asked the king to Nagasena- is the same that just died or is he different?
-Not the same or different ... -Nagasena answered-. Tell me: if a man lights a lamp could it provide light all night?
-Yes.
-Then the flame that lights in the first vigil of night is it the same that lights in the second or the last?
-No.
- Does this mean that there is a lamp in the first vigil of the night, another in the second and another in the third?
-No, the light shines all night due to this unique lamp.

The life and death of the individual body are biological accidents that do not transcend the plane of mind and consciousness. Affect obviously the concrete experience of the individual in sensory level, yet every moment the mind and thoughts vary, come and go and are renewed (as the flame) either in our mind or in that of others, because, in background, is the same, because nothing and nobody modifies the evolution of thought in an arbitrary manner. The logos of thought itself reborn and happens all the time, apart from our fickle will, because it is precisely what conforms our will (and the rest of our higher mental abilities).

As unstable flames... or as variable waves.

In the Aphorisms of Patanjali says, "Yoga is the control of thought waves."

Prabhavananda Swami said, "When the senses register an event or an object from the outside world, in the mind stands a wave of thought, sense of ego identifies with this wave, if it is nice ego feels: I'm happy, if it is unpleasant ego feels: I'm miserable. This false identification is the cause of our sufferings, because even temporary ego feeling of happiness brings anxiety and a desire to the object of pleasure, which prepares future possibilities of becoming unhappy."

Surely we will not get absolute control, but if we try, again and again, seeing our mind as agitated by these unpredictable waves, we will get used to distinguish their nature, the suffering generated by the fact we identify with them and how powerless we are to dissipate the storm...

Atman, Anatman, Brahman are the air that generates the waves and move the swinging flame of our mind, which moves our thinking, what's behind that makes it dynamic, but not shows itself, because is it what shows.

Appears at the beginning of the Kena Upanishad:

Who makes the mind go so far? Who makes life begin its journey? Who impels us to express these words?

That can not be put into words, but makes the words to spoke. Know it is Brahman, the Spirit, and not what people adore here.

That you can not think with your mind, but makes the mind can think. Know it is Brahman, the Spirit, and not what people adore here.