Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness. The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: “I think, therefore I am”. He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects that ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being ‘at one’ and therefore at peace. Atone with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and life unmanifested – at one with being. 

Recommended reading: The Power of Now.