I am not sure if I have a mind at all.
You think, therefore you have a brain!
Your posts about your new mind are always mind-blowing.
Here's a few quick thoughts:
Is your absence of underlying thoughts not a blessing? One that folks spend a great deal of time trying to achieve? Those few times I have tried to meditate, I have always been shocked by the types of thoughts that go, unbidden, through my brain. I wonder if those are going all the time, underlying and influencing my more deliberate reason.
When one hears voices, might those not be those underlying thoughts having gotten louder? (sorry about the weird verb tenses. I do that when I'm thinking hard)
You've made me want to meditate, to better acquaint myself with my underlying thoughts to that, when I'm trying to consciously puzzle something out, those underlying and less desirable thoughts are not guiding me to erroneous conclusions. Hm.
Do you now come to conclusions that are different from those of your pre-stroke brain's?
This is fascinating. You've been given (the hard way) something that yogis spend lifetimes trying to receive.
I have a brain - but if it doesn't do much, does it count? :D
I assume so. I think that "clearing the mind" is more about cutting out the noise so we can see what is there beneath - but there is always something right?
I think there is room for those underlying thoughts to undermine us, influence us outside of our awareness, and trick us into thinking that it is right, because it feels right.
Yes, but not in a good way. Normally, our unconscious awareness makes us somewhat aware of what we don't explicitly see. My unconscious doesn't do much of that, so I only get to work with what I already know and can recall. It is very limiting.
Maybe it is the easy way! Perhaps, if those yogis had this skill, they wouldn't want it for long.
For you, it's default. For them, I imagine they could turn it off and on. I'm not sure I would like having that kind of control over my thoughts