Don’t believe everything you think.

Thoughts are your body’s navigation system.

They are maps that were written on your nervous system in the past — sometimes decades or even generations ago— to try to guide you toward a better future.

They’re there to try to protect you from harm.

And they do a good job of it, to a certain extent.

But those maps are outdated.

And they were never the full truth to begin with.

Just as a paper map is a distilled interpretation of the land, thoughts are limited interpretations of reality.

And the world in which they were written has shape-shifted entirely.

Those moments are entirely gone.

That is the nature of life, constantly changing and flowing.

You can only really navigate life in the moment you are in.

Yet we humans have a tendency to imagine, through the mental imagining embedded in our thoughts, that the world we are in is the same as it was.

We imagine this because it gives us a sense of control and understanding.

But this means we don’t see what’s in front of us.

We react to the reality of the present moment as if the past were still true.

And by keeping our focus on the thoughts we have about life, we miss out on actually living life as it flows through our experience.

The truth is that thoughts filter reality.

Thoughts change the light and color of our perception, but they cannot change reality, they can only change our experience of it.

Yet we forget this, and we mistake our thoughts for the capital “T” Truth.

Thoughts aren’t Truth.

Thoughts are thoughts.

Truth lies beyond image, beyond the mind’s interpretation.

And the Truth isn’t something that can be understood intellectually.

Thoughts can point to the Truth, but they are not it.

They are just ink on a page, sounds formed by a mouth, images flittering across the screen of your consciousness.

The Truth is not the same as the interpretation of it.

The mind will try to tell you otherwise, of course.

The mind will try to convince you that words, thoughts, and images are the only way to make sense of life.

This is what the mind does.

And it’s true, but only to a certain extent.

Thoughts are useful in making plans and sorting through life’s practicalities.

Thoughts can even be beautiful, fantastical experiences if we allow ourselves to get lost in daydreams every once in a while.

But a problem arises when we become so addicted to thinking about life that we neglect the actual living of it.

Your mind is doing it right now.

It’s trying to figure out what all of these words really mean, and how they can be used to make the future better.

But the future is also a figment of the imagination, an illusion of the mind.

You never actually get there.

The only place that you can truly taste life is right where you are, in this experience, beyond thought.

How can you move beyond thought?

Be.

Right where you are.

Feel into the aliveness in your body.

Notice your thoughts, and notice the space between your thoughts, between the words and the images.

This space is sacred. This space is where the Truth resides.

You are not your thoughts.

You are the observer of your thoughts.

You are the screen on which they appear.

And even when the story shifts and changes, you remain the same.

So ask yourself, “who am I?”

And instead of thinking about the answer, experience it, right where you are.