There is a point beyond which calculation must cease

Hi all. I'm back from a very long road trip, and came across this wonderful passage as the train was bounding across the prairies in the pre-morning light (does that mean I was on a "rail trip"?):

If you really want to find out if there is such a thing as God, something that cannot possibly be put into words ... one must understand oneself, the structure and the nature of the self; and the structure and the nature of oneself is measurable by thought. It is measurable in the sense that thought can perceive its own activities, thought can see what it has created, what it has denied, what it has accepted; and when one realizes the limitations of thought, then perhaps one can go into that which lies beyond thought. (Awakening of Intelligence, p. 302-303)

In the past few days (this is Ted speaking again, not a quote!), I've been noticing my thoughts and following their logic, following them to their conclusion. Thoughts can be very compelling! But the ones I've been having lately, the energetic ones, don't really withstand any scrutiny. If I simply ask, "Is that true?," they dissipate; they aren't true. These ones are particularly false, but I'm not sure any thought can withstand a few moments of scrutiny. All thought is limited. And in uncovering the limits of particular thoughts, one is brought back to a more embodied, dynamic reality. I haven't exactly found God this week (!), but I like Krishnamurti's suggestion above that we might watch our thoughts with sufficient curiosity that their limitations automatically reveal themselves. What remains is beyond thought.

Here's Jacques Derrida: "There is a point, or a limit, beyond which calculation must cease." He's writing about justice, its actual impossibility within any concrete understanding of justice, and (more hopefully) its inevitable arrival in the unconceptualized space beyond conceptual thought.

Be well.