Thoughts pour through the mind like water through a river bed;
your choices are either, (as most do): accept the situation as is,
pay-it-no-mind, (as it literally and unwitting were), and flow with it --  or:

While the former is humanity’s standard state,
scattered voices have always been heard urging man to the latter;
heed has been small  --  ‘tis difficult to sell the call  --  what is its advantage?
 

Everything in man operates similarly;
from birth ‘til death does blood flow through the heart;
air through lungs, food through the stomach, to which no one suggests impediment; indeed, such would be detrimental,
so what improvement would be realized by interference in the normal flow of thought?
The sparse dissidents have never been able to answer this satisfactorily
for the majority, thus this mental alternative has remained a marginal concept --
directly that is, for in diluted and disguised form it appears throughout
ordinary men’s lives:
in science, religion, education, and the notion of common-sense;
it is practiced by all in their exercise of: concentration, devotion,
attention to the facts, and acting based on the actual conditions of a situation, but is still viewed as a non standard use of the mind in but specific instances,
(in the lab, in church, in school, in challenging circumstances).
For the rest of ordinary men’s lives (97%+) they go with flow;
their minds & consciousness simply float along on and in
the thoughts that endlessly pour through them as effortlessly and mindlessly as
a vacationer drifting dreamily on a raft down a restful river.
This is man’s normal mental state when his brain’s consciousness has not been instinctively put to work assisting its other, silent operations in solving a survival related problem;
the proof of its normality is that,
like the pumping of the heart  --  no one notices it.
Indeed ordinary men take this state of consciousness in their brain to be, them--  their personal self --  their soul, their spirit --
the very “I” at the center of all their conversations.
 

The irregulars already indicated are born with a quirk in their nature
that causes them to question and want to resist this standard state;
attempts to do so are at the heart of all disciplines dedicated to
the alteration of a participant's conscious perception of life and himself;
as early as history records, men have been trying --  in their own brain –-
to stand up in the middle of the flowing thoughts, as a floater on a river,
and be still amidst the water & ideas rushing all around them.
To this end they have employed drugs; repetitious chanting and moving;
being silent and motionless, and the direct effort to simply keep one piece of their consciousness from being carried along by the never ending flow of thoughts through the brain, and always supported by the study of ideas that say they will teach a man how to achieve this goal.
Various terms are used throughout the world to describe such activities,
but they are all based on that one alternative to man’s routine mental state.
 

As practiced by these nervous system anomalies,
there is more questioning of the state than actual resistance thereto,
for that, after all, is what the brain is best at;
it has no hands with which to physically do anything,
what it does do is think about things that it can have the hands do;
question conditions as they are;
picture how they could be changed and made more agreeable;
even ponder why they are like they are to begin with.
These men’s brains do reflect on the questions of:
"Why do men say one thing and commonly act to the contrary?
Why do men argue over matters which I see are irrelevant?
Why cannot men see that most of what they believe is plainly foolish,
and why am I not totally satisfied with me  --  and why am I not recognized as
the mental/spiritual giant I so clearly and in private am?"
 

No such questions regarding the nature of man can be answered whilst
the mind of the questioner --  goes with the flow  --
so that what he thinks of as his thinking is whatever the thoughts are that
naturally run though his consciousness;
does not matter what the thoughts specifically are --
if they naturally flow through you --  they contain nothing enlightening or useful,
and neither do those of another person, no matter their reputation or charisma.
The Flow is the flow and is the same in everyone;
everyone's normal state of consciousness is fed by pasta;
some call it spaghetti, some call it macaroni, some call it ravioli,
but they are all the same dough;
macaroni cannot overcome ravioli;
noodles are not right and spaghetti wrong;
the flow cannot correct itself and alter its own course -- its course IS its course,
and the materials it carries downstream --  through the minds of collective man --  are the materials IT needs to sustain itself.
 

To ever see what is really going on  --  in your brain  --   which is all that
anyone is wanting to see, regardless of what other fancy names they call it –
you must willfully bring yourself to an instant stop amidst the ever flowing river of thoughts, and stand upright, stable and still, and only then can you get the needed, new perspective of this flow, with your head, as it were,
now several feet above the surface rather than at surface level;
only after repeated such episodes and non standard views of this inner river can the time come when one day when you remember once again to stop a piece of your mind, stand upright and still amidst the rushing, automatic flow of pasta-thoughts
normal for your brain --  the whole thing suddenly comes together,
and you instantly realize completely  --  what is going on.
 
 

                Standing upright in the middle of the river running inside of you