What To Think. How To Think.

In our homes and schools, parents and teachers always tell us what to think but never in our lives do they teach us HOW to think.

Knowing what to think is relatively very easy. Our parents, teachers, tutors, book authors, etc. etc. etc. each one is a dictator in their own way, each one wants us to think according to their dictates, demands, theories, prejudices, etc.

Dictators of the mind abound like weeds. There is everywhere a perverse tendency to enslave the minds of others, to bottle them up, to force them to live within certain norms, prejudices, schools, etc.

The thousands and millions of DICTATORS of the mind have never wanted to respect anyone’s mental freedom. If someone doesn’t think like them, they are labelled perverse, renegade, ignorant, etc. etc. etc.

Everyone wants to enslave everyone else, everyone wants to trample on the intellectual freedom of others. No one wants to respect the freedom of thought of others. Each one feels JUDICIOUS, WISE, WONDERFUL, and naturally wants others to be like them, to make them their model, to think like them.

The mind has been abused too much. Observe the MERCHANTS, and their advertising through newspapers, radio, television, etc. etc. etc. Commercial advertising is done in a dictatorial way. Buy such-and-such soap! Such-and-such shoes! So many pounds! So many dollars! Buy right now! Immediately! Don’t leave it for tomorrow! It has to be immediately! etc. They only need to say that if you don’t obey, we’ll put you in jail, or we’ll murder you.

The father wants to force his ideas on his son, and the school teacher scolds, punishes and gives low grades if the boy or girl does not DICTATORIALLY accept the teacher’s ideas.

Half of humanity wants to enslave the minds of the other half of humanity. This tendency to enslave the minds of others is clearly evident when we study the black page of black history.

Everywhere there have been and are BLOODY DICTATORSHIPS determined to enslave peoples. Bloody dictatorships that dictate what people should think. Woe to him! who tries to think freely: that one inevitably goes to concentration camps, to Siberia, to prison, to forced labour, to the gallows, to the firing squad, to exile, etc.

Neither TEACHERS, nor PARENTS, nor books, want to teach HOW TO THINK.

People love to force others to think according to how they believe it should be, and it is clear that each one in this is a DICTATOR in their own way, each one believes they have the last word, each one firmly believes that everyone else should think like them, because they are the best of the best.

Parents, teachers, employers, etc. etc. etc., scold and scold their subordinates again.

It is appalling that horrible tendency of humanity to disrespect others, to trample on the minds of others, to cage, imprison, enslave, chain the thoughts of others.

The husband wants to force his ideas into his wife’s head, his doctrine, his ideas, etc., and the wife wants to do the same. Many times husband and wife divorce due to incompatibility of ideas. Spouses do not want to understand the need to respect the intellectual freedom of others.

No spouse has the right to enslave the mind of another spouse. Each one is in fact worthy of respect. Each one has the right to think as they wish, to profess their religion, to belong to the political party they want.

School children are forced to think in certain ideas, but they are not taught how to manage the mind. The minds of children are tender, elastic, ductile, and those of the old are already hard, fixed, like clay in a mould, they no longer change, they can no longer change. The minds of children and young people are susceptible to many changes, they can change.

Children and young people can be taught how TO THINK. It is very difficult to teach the old HOW TO THINK because they are already as they are and that is how they die. It is very rare to find in life an old person interested in changing radically.

People’s minds are moulded from childhood. That is what parents and school teachers prefer to do. They enjoy shaping the minds of children and young people. A mind placed in a mould is in fact a conditioned mind, a slave mind.

It is necessary that the TEACHERS break the shackles of the mind. It is urgent that teachers know how to direct the minds of children towards true freedom so that they are no longer enslaved. It is essential that teachers teach students HOW TO THINK PROPERLY.

Teachers must understand the need to teach students the path of analysis, meditation, understanding. No understanding person should ever accept anything dogmatically. It is urgent to investigate first. Understand, inquire, before accepting.

In other words, we will say that there is no need to accept, but to investigate, analyse, meditate and understand. When understanding is complete, acceptance is unnecessary.

It is useless to fill our heads with intellectual information if when we leave school WE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO THINK and we continue as LIVING AUTOMATONS, like machines, repeating the same routine as our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, etc. Always repeating the same thing, living the life of machines, from home to the office and from the office to home, getting married to become baby-making machines, that is not living and if that is what we study for, and that is what we go to school and college and university for ten or fifteen years, it would be better not to study.

MAHATMA GHANDI was a very singular man. Many times, Protestant pastors sat at his door for hours and hours struggling to convert him to Christianity in its Protestant form. Gandhi did not accept the teaching of the pastors, nor did he reject it, he UNDERSTOOD it, he RESPECTED it, and that is all. Many times, the MAHATMA said: “I am Brahman, Jew, Christian, Muslim, etc. etc. etc.” The MAHATMA understood that all religions are necessary because they all preserve the same ETERNAL VALUES.

Accepting or rejecting any doctrine OR concept, reveals a lack of mental maturity. When we reject or accept something, it is because we have not understood it. Where there is UNDERSTANDING, acceptance or rejection are unnecessary.

The mind that believes, the mind that does not believe, the mind that doubts, is an IGNORANT mind. The path of WISDOM does not consist of BELIEVING or not BELIEVING or DOUBTING. The path of WISDOM consists of INQUIRING, analysing, meditating and EXPERIMENTING.

TRUTH is the unknown from moment to moment. Truth has nothing to do with what one believes or ceases to believe, nor does scepticism. TRUTH is not a question of accepting something or rejecting it. TRUTH is a question of EXPERIENCING, LIVING, UNDERSTANDING.

All the effort of the TEACHERS must ultimately lead the students to the EXPERIENCE of the real, of the true.

It is URGENT that TEACHERS abandon that antiquated and pernicious tendency always aimed at SHAPING the PLASTIC and DUCTILE mind of children. It is absurd that ADULT people full of prejudices, passions, antiquated preconceptions, etc. trample on the minds of children and young people, trying to shape their minds according to their stale, clumsy, antiquated ideas.

It is better to respect the INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM of the STUDENTS, respect their mental promptness, their creative spontaneity. Teachers have no right to cage the minds of students.

The fundamental thing is not to DICTATE to the MIND of the students what it should think, but to teach them completely, HOW TO THINK. The MIND is the instrument of KNOWLEDGE and it is necessary that TEACHERS teach their students to manage that instrument wisely.