Are Our Thoughts Ours?

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We all experience our thoughts as being our own. They feel like ours. We don’t usually consider where our thoughts arise from, and we either dismiss our thoughts or act on them automatically, without particularly questioning whether this is what we really want to do.

But Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag, the great master Kabbalist, teaches that our thoughts do not originate from us, they come to us from God.

All the thoughts that come into our minds are the work of the Creator. But this does not accord with the way we feel things. We think that we attract our thoughts from someplace, or that our thoughts arise within us.  Our thoughts feel like our thoughts. But this is a complete falsehood, the greatest of all lies. That we think that we own our thoughts is the greatest lie of all.

The truth is, that it is God who sends even the most subtle of thoughts into our minds, and is through this means that He motivates us, moving us to act through the thoughts He sends us. It is through this means that He motivates us and moves us

Just as the earth cannot feel who is sending it the rain that causes the seeds to sprout, so we cannot feel who is sending our thoughts to us that create within us motivation or needs. This is because until a thought has entered our minds, we cannot actually think it. And once it is in the domain of our minds, it feels like it is ours.

God sends us thoughts one after the other, in a tailor- made sequence, in order to move each one of us further along the path that will bring us into affinity of form with Him and thus enable us to receive all the good and delight that God purposes for each and every one of us.

So God sends to us a series of thoughts and feelings, both good and bad. Thoughts and feelings, which are organized according to the  Divine providence, tailored uniquely and intimately for every one of us to bring us to the fulfilment of our soul’s purpose. No one shall be left out, as it is written in Samuel II 14:14 “even the banished one shall not be cast out.” 

Pri Chacham Sichot.

From what Rabbi Ashlag writes, we can see that we have here an amazing channel of communication and of contact with our Creator. It’s a channel of communication which is intimate and true, inspiring us to turn toward God, a channel that is always available to us. It is ready for each one of us to use, so long as we acknowledge it and consciously use it. Indeed we need to give thanks for every thought we receive, and feel great joy that God Himself is communicating with us, demonstrating His care for each of us as a unique individual who is precious in His eyes.