Where Do Thoughts Actually Come From? The Answer Will Surprise You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T-q3pw4Iig

Video Summary

The question "where do thoughts come from?" assumes there must be a location — a specific point in the mind where each thought originates. But try this: become aware of what your next thought is going to be, and wait. It doesn't come. Not because you suppressed it, but because the moment awareness turns toward the thought, there is nothing for it to appear on. A thought is an appearance — and appearances can only appear when you're not looking directly at what they appear in. This is not a philosophical position. It's something you can verify right now, in under a minute.

The analogy is precise: you're in the middle of an ocean surrounded by waves. You infer the ocean from the waves. But if water itself tried to watch where the next wave would arise from — no wave could appear. The wave is nothing but water taking a temporary form. In the same way, thoughts are nothing but awareness taking a temporary appearance. The ocean is not another kind of wave. Awareness is not another kind of thought. It is that in which thoughts arise and subside — and when awareness is fully alert to itself, there is simply no gap for a thought to appear in.

Thoughts don't have a birthplace. They don't start from somewhere and travel to you. Like a dream — which begins with no starting point, no location, no moment of origination, with the whole universe already in place the instant it begins — thoughts arise spontaneously, with time and space already built in. You cannot trace them back to a source because the source is not a thing, not a location, not a moment. It is awareness itself. And awareness cannot find a thought for the same reason water cannot find a wave. If this points to something you've glimpsed but can't stabilise — a Clarity Call is where we look at it directly together.

Full Transcript

So — where do thoughts actually arise from? That's the question.

As always, let's first dismantle the question. See the words and find out what the question is actually seeking as an answer, and what the questioner is assuming to be true. The first word is where.

Where can only be answered by a someplace — there, here, nowhere, somewhere, everywhere. Where is a space word. So the question is asking for a location — a place in space.

Thoughts — we know these are the mental images we have in our mind, that we perceive, that are personal to us. Not everybody can see what we see. Everyone can see what is around us in the physical world, but our thoughts are our personal projections. The images I can see in my mind — those are thoughts. So: where do thoughts actually, in reality, arise from? Arise means they come up. And so the questioner is asking — what location, which place, is the place where these thoughts randomly come up from? It's a brilliant question.

The assumption is that there must be a place where these thoughts come up from. And here's the thing — 99% of the time, we have thoughts which are random. We don't consciously choose or think the thoughts we have in our mind. Whenever we are not aware of our thoughts, thoughts arise. And what happens if we pay attention to them? A thought arises. I pay attention to it. Now I think about it — it moves within time and space, it arrives somewhere. I have thought something. But the question is — where did that thought come up from in the first place?

This is a question nobody asks. We never question thoughts when they come up. We simply start following them. We simply pay attention to them — and then we find ourselves either in the past or in the future, through commentary, narration, imagination, projection. Thoughts are about the past or the future. They are not in the present moment anyway.

Now — where attention goes, energy flows. When you pay attention to a thought, you bring it to life. You're giving it your energy. You're allowing that thought to complete, to do its work — whatever you want to understand or infer, whatever you want to know about the past or the future.

If you do it consciously, then you're giving energy to a thought you consciously want to think about. But if thoughts spontaneously arise and you keep giving them your energy, you will feel mentally exhausted. You'll find yourself in a spiral — the same thoughts keep repeating themselves, and you'll find there is no control over them.

Let's do this. Close your eyes and let's wait. We're going to observe — and we can also check what the question is asking: where does a thought actually arise from?

So let's wait, observe, and wait for the next thought to appear. If it does appear, we'll be able to know where it arises from — we'll have a location. But let's wait and see.

Become aware of what your next thought is going to be.

I'm giving it time. Let it — we can wait so that this isn't just a quick exercise. I want you to experience it. Know that if you become aware of what your next thought is going to be — for some reason, it doesn't come up. If I become aware of what my next thought is going to be — there is no next thought that comes up.

What is my next thought going to be? You can open your eyes.

The next thought does not appear.

What is the reason? If the next thought doesn't appear, obviously we can't find a location — because the thought did not come when we were looking for it. It did not come, and so we have no location. We can't say it arose from here. There is no location because there is no thought.

Now why? Why did the thought not arise? Why will it stop the moment you become aware of it?

When awareness is all there is in reality — the appearance in awareness cannot appear if you become aware of awareness itself.

Here's an example. Imagine you're in a boat, in the middle of a surrounding that is full of waves. Water waves — infinite. Wherever you look, all around you, there are waves. Some are big, some are small, some are fast, some are slow. They arise and they subside. They're moving. They're making noise all around you. Waves.

Now — you would probably infer: I am in the middle of an ocean. How did you come to that conclusion? Because there are an infinite number of waves around you. You'd say — these many waves would not be in a glass of water, not in a pond, not in a little lake. I must be in the middle of an ocean. You saw waves. You inferred the ocean.

Now — if you look into the water and try to find the ocean, you won't find the ocean. You can't find the ocean in the waves. The ocean is not another kind of wave. It is that in which all waves arise and subside. It itself is not another wave.

In the same way — your mind, awareness, consciousness — that is where all your thoughts arise and subside. The mind is not another kind of thought or thing. Consciousness or awareness is not another kind of thing or thought. It is that in which all thoughts arise and subside.

So the question comes again — where, location. If water in the ocean hears about waves and decides — let me watch where the next wave is going to arise from — water waiting for a wave to arise. Impossible. The water can never find a wave — because the wave is an appearance of water. So if water becomes aware, a wave cannot arise. The wave is nothing but water. It is an appearance in water.

In the same way — if we become aware of what our next thought is going to be, when awareness is alert and awake, that which is an appearance cannot appear — because it has to appear when you're not aware of it. The movie on a screen only appears and is exciting when you say: I forget about the screen. I want to enjoy what is appearing on the screen.

Now let's go a little deeper.

In previous videos, we talk about this all the time — the mind, a thing, and a thought. These three arise and subside simultaneously. You can't have one without the other two. You can't have a thing without a thought and the mind. You can't have a thought without its thing and the mind. The mind is inferred by a thing or a thought.

You see an object — you cannot see an object without knowing it. Even if it's a new object, you know that you don't know it. Take a chair. You see a chair — that's the physical thing. But chair is in the mind. It's a thought. I see a thing and its thought simultaneously, and I infer they're in my mind. The thing, thought and mind come up together and go down together.

Things are in time and space. Things are objects — limited in time and space. Now, a thing is physically real. But time and space are not real things. You cannot touch space. You cannot see space. You cannot perceive space the way you perceive physical things. You cannot perceive time the way you perceive physical things. An object is perceived. Time and space are automatically inferred.

So if I see a chair, I automatically know it is in this room, in this house — space, place. I infer that it is here and not anywhere else. And I saw it when I saw it — it was 11 o'clock, not 6. Object in time and space. So with an object, time and space are inferred. And without the object — there is no time, there is no space. Without a thing, there is no time and space. A thing arises with time and space — within time and space.

To give you the best example — when you have a dream at night, the dream does not have a beginning. It doesn't have a location where it starts. Whenever you have a dream, you're already in the dream. Everything is already set up. The things, the world, the whole universe arises spontaneously — time, space, objects, and you as the person.

Everything comes up together. And there is no point where you can say: oh, before this I wasn't dreaming, I just started from this point. There is no starting point. There is no starting place. The dream universe spontaneously begins — with time, space, and objects already in place. It's always the story already started, without a beginning.

In the same way — we cannot pinpoint where thoughts arise from, because they are appearances. There is no physical location. There is no mental location where a thought arises from.

As soon as you're not aware of your thoughts, they will pop up. You become aware of them — and there is nothing that can appear in that which is real.