Thinking Without Thinking

In an interview, Ray Hemachandra asks: Some people may struggle to disengage the intellect. How do you undo thinking without thinking? Is inquiry not thought engaging itself or deconstructing another thought?

Katie Replies: Actually, it’s mind seeing through itself and understanding itself. I like to say that understanding is the power. The most important relationship is the mind’s relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate—and, really, the only—relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.


As far as intellect, what else is there? Without intellect, there’s no story and no world. If we are in silence — in absolute silence with no thoughts — for 10 minutes, it’s only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought.


Mind is everything. There’s nothing that it’s not.


If people are living their lives for security and comfort and pleasure, then mind’s every waking moment will be plotting those things. That’s how it stays identified — as a body, as a you. The moment it begins to question itself, the mind becomes so clear that it starts working with itself rather than with the body’s identification.