I Don't Think Therefore I Am

One of the greatest thinkers in the West, Descartes, has said, “I think, therefore I am.” Cogito ergo sum. and Descartes is the father of modern Western philosophy. “I think, therefore I am.” Just the opposite has been the experience in the East. Buddha, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu they will laugh, they will laugh tremendously when they hear Descartes dictum, “I think, therefore I am’; because they say, “I don’t think, therefore I am”. Because when thinking ceases, only then does one know who one is. In a non-thinking state of consciousness one realizes one's being, not by thinking, but by non-thinking. Meditation is nonthinking; it is an effort to create a state of no-mind.