05z | CR Book I, Chapter 4

from asthenia, anxiety and a sense of guilt, it
tends to become obsessional. Because thinkers are
ridden with inferiority, they usually desire to
compel others by thought, distorting thought into
a weapon in their struggle for power. The fruit of
thinking easily becomes an object of solicitude.
There is the wish for survival and effect, and the
fascination by written symbols as such, a form of
the 'lust of the eye'. Preoccupation with concepts
tends to get the thinker away from a mindful awa-
reness of his own concrete being. Too often he ne-
glects his body, and in consequence is frightened
for and about it. He tends to overlook the concr-
ete social conditions of his existence:
detribalisation, a peculiar tradition, the fash-
ions and needs of his day, a usually not very con-
spicuous position in the process of pro-
duction etc. Alternatively, he tends to glorify
them, and to twist his thought so that in the end
its results miraculously justify him as an indiv-
idual who feels a social failure, and feed the con-
ceit of the occupational tribe he belongs to.
Thought, born of isolation, hardens it. For the thin-
ker isolates himself from others who cannot 'fol-
low', and tends to despise them. Because one relies
on the brittle thought, wraps oneself in thoughts
as a sheltering and defensive armour, one is kept
away from safer refuges. The considerable effort
expended on creative thought also strenghtens na-
rcissism; one treats thought as an opportunity for
personal achievement, thus neglecting the simple
work of the Path; one becomes attached to one's
theories, and infatuated with the beauty and soli-
dity of one's own thoughts, while all the while
the body rots away, and the right moment may esca-
pe. Finally, too easily does speculation act as a
substitute for practical efforts. It is a notori-
ous fact that there are reflecting individuals
who believe to be beyond everything through their
reflections because in reality they never get out
of their reflections.