S01/E04: “I Am What I Think (And I Am Not What I Think)” – Disentangling from Thought-Based Identity

Introduction

Welcome back to Martfotai, a quiet path of clarity, presence, and gentle freedom.

I’m Gary Eggleton. It’s a privilege to walk with you again on this journey inward.

So far, we’ve explored how our sense of self is made up of many shifting parts. We’ve seen how the outer world reflects those fragments back to us, and how we can begin to build a still centre within, a place of quiet observation amidst the flow.

Today, we arrive at a subtle yet essential insight:

You are not your thoughts.

It sounds simple. But this shift, when verified, changes everything.

From our earliest years, we absorb ideas, words, and beliefs, often without question. And because we don’t verify what we take in, those absorbed thoughts become automatic. They colour our perceptions, stir our moods, and quietly create inner divisions that we rarely see.

Think of how many times you’ve believed a thought that later turned out to be completely false.
You worried about something that never happened.
You replayed a conversation that didn’t mean what you thought it did.
You assumed someone’s silence was rejection, only to learn they were simply tired.

Yet in the moment, it all felt real, because thought made it so.

George I. Gurdjieff reminded us: we must verify everything for ourselves. Otherwise, we live in contradiction, split between what is real and what is believed.

He described our inner world as a carriage, capable of carrying something sacred: presence, awareness, the real ‘I’.
But too often, that carriage is overcrowded with mechanical thoughts, noisy passengers who one by one come in uninvited, speak over each other and leave no room for the quiet guest to enter.

This is what the old story of the birth of Christ symbolises when it says: there was no room at the inn.
The inn is the mind. The crowd is the noise. And the quiet birth of presence can only happen when there is space.

So imagine this:

You are standing calmly on a train station platform.
Each passing train is a thought, a narrative, a belief.
If you step onto one carriage, you begin to move with it, into imagined futures, or back through distorted pasts.
But if you remain still, watching quietly as each train passes, you stay rooted in clarity. You don’t have to fight the thought. You just don’t board it.

That’s our invitation today.

To begin gently distinguishing ourselves from our thoughts.
To learn how to stay rooted on that platform of presence.
And to discover the quiet freedom that arises when we stop believing everything we think.

Let’s begin.

Section 1: Through a Glass Darkly – Thought as a Coloured Lens

Imagine a perfectly clear window through which sunlight pours. The window doesn’t alter the light, it simply lets it pass through, allowing you to see the world as it is: vivid, open, undistorted.

Now imagine that same window slowly taking on a colour, perhaps a soft blue, or a warm gold. Suddenly, everything outside changes. The trees, the sky, the faces of others… they haven’t altered, yet your experience of them has. The world hasn’t changed, but your perception of it has.

This is what thought does.

Each thought we hold adds a tint to our experience. When we’re worried, the world feels dangerous. When we’re at ease, the same world feels peaceful. The events are the same, what changes is the lens.

It’s easy to overlook how powerful this is. We often assume we’re seeing things as they are, when in fact, we’re seeing them as we think they are.

It’s easy to overlook how powerful this is. We often assume we’re seeing things as they are, when in fact, we’re seeing them as we think they are.

Shakespeare captured this with piercing simplicity in Hamlet:
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Hamlet was speaking not as a philosopher, but as a man in quiet torment, trapped not just by external events, but by the meanings his mind attached to them.

He even says, “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”
The dreams weren’t real. But they coloured everything.

Thought does that.
One moment of interpretation, one unconscious lens, and the entire world feels different.

And this colouring doesn’t stop with perception. It reaches emotion.
How we think shapes how we feel. How we feel shapes how we think.
If we believe something is bad, we start to feel that it is. And the more we repeat that loop, the more real it becomes.

That’s why judgment is so contagious. When we point a finger outward, three fingers always point back. The judgment we place on others reveals something deeper, what remains unresolved within ourselves.
This ancient truth is echoed in the biblical phrase: “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own?”

Thought becomes a filter, and that filter becomes our world.

 Pause for a moment and recall a time your thoughts convinced you something was absolutely true, something that stirred anxiety, anger, or sadness, only to find out later you were wrong.
A conversation you feared, a message you misread, a silence you interpreted as rejection… yet none of it was true. The thought felt real. But reality wasn’t what the thought claimed.

This is not a rare event. It happens every day of our lives.

And who would ultimately like this as an epitaph? “My life was full of terrible misfortunes and calamities, most of which never happened.”

George I. Gurdjieff warned us of believing what we think. He taught that we are learning machines, built to absorb impressions quickly, but unless we verify what we take in, we become divided within. When we accept thoughts without verification, we create contradiction. One part believes one thing; another part believes the opposite. The result is fragmentation.

So much of our inner confusion is not caused by the world, but by the colour of the glass we’re looking through.

And the colour is always changing.

There’s a simple freedom that comes when we see this clearly:
Thoughts are not facts. They are filters.

And when we pause to look at them instead of through them, presence returns.

[Pause]

Section 2: The Book of Life – Writing Now or Rewriting the Past

Life is always offering us a blank page.

Every moment is fresh, unwritten, quietly inviting us to be here now, to meet what is, directly.

But most of us don’t write on the page in front of us.

We turn back.

We reread old pages. We edit them. We add footnotes. We argue with what was. We imagine how it could have gone. And without realising it, we stop living in the present and start reliving a distorted past.

This is one of the quiet tragedies of unobserved thought. Instead of meeting life as it is, we meet it through memory, comparing, interpreting, and reacting to things that no longer exist.

The past in memory is not fixed. It shifts. It bends to our mood, our identity, our current thoughts. When we revisit it, we don’t just recall, we rewrite. And then we carry that rewritten version into the present, letting it shape how we feel, how we act, even how we see ourselves.

Gurdjieff once said, “Man is given a definite number of experiences, economizing them, he prolongs his life.”

He didn’t mean we should avoid experience. He meant we should not waste it.

When we spend our attention reliving and reprocessing the past, we drain the present of life. And attention is life.

Each thought that pulls you back into an old page draws energy away from what is unfolding now.

Sometimes we don’t notice this until years have passed.
We find ourselves trapped in stories built from memory, emotion, and regret, stories that keep repeating because we’ve never stopped to rewrite the pattern from awareness.

But you can return.
Right now.

And the way back is simple:
See that thought is what links this moment to the past, not the moment itself.
The moment is always new.
It only feels familiar because thought colours it the same way it did before.

Maybe you’ve caught yourself expecting a conversation to go badly, before it even begins, because one like it once did. Or maybe you’ve sensed joy in a moment, only to watch it vanish the instant an old memory surfaced.

This isn’t a flaw.
It’s simply what the mechanical mind does. It loops.
It uses the past to predict the future, and in doing so, it dims the present.

But you are not the mind.
You are the one who can see this.

And when you do, when you stop rereading and start writing again, there’s a gentle shift. A quiet clarity. A return.

Not dramatic. Not loud. Just a simple turning toward presence.

And in that moment, you begin to live again, not relive.

[Pause]

Section 3: Freedom from the Beliefs of Others

When someone tells you who they think you are, what happens inside?

Do you defend? Justify? Replay their words long after the moment has passed?

Most of us do.

We want to be seen clearly. We want to be understood. But often hidden inside that desire is a quiet error, the belief that someone else’s opinion defines us.

It doesn’t.

Their perception is a reflection of them, not a revelation about you.
It’s filtered through their mood, their history, their unmet needs and internal noise.

Whatever they think you are, that’s what you are to them, in that moment.
It may feel personal. But it’s not the truth. It’s a lens.

To see this is to become free, not defiant or cold, but still.
You no longer need to explain. You stop trying to correct the image in their mind.
Because you recognise: their story about you is happening in their world, not yours.

You don’t have to take it on.

This is the essence of staying on your platform.

Thoughts come. Judgments pass. Opinions pull at you like trains in motion.
And if you climb aboard, if you engage and react, you’re no longer still.
You’ve begun travelling in someone else’s direction.

The longer you stay on that train, the more entangled you become.
You adopt the identity they offered. You defend something you never agreed to.

But if you remain on the platform, clear, grounded, you see the train.
You hear the words.
But you don’t go with them.

This isn’t distance.
It’s clarity.

Your presence isn’t up for negotiation.
It doesn’t change based on who sees it clearly or not.

And the more you see this for yourself, the less there is to defend.
You no longer need agreement to be whole.
You simply remain, quiet, real, and unshaken.

[Pause]

Section 4: The Platform and the Train – Holding Presence While Thoughts Pass

The mind moves. That’s its nature.
Thoughts arise, one after another. Stories form, dissolve, reform.
But the problem isn’t that thoughts appear. The problem is that we go with them.

Imagine standing in a train station.
You’re still. Present. Watching.
Trains pass. Some are fast and loud. Others familiar and persuasive.
Each one slows just enough to let you board.

In this image, you are the platform.
The trains are your thoughts.

If you step onto a train, if you follow a thought, believe it, become it, you’re no longer where you were.
You’ve left the stability of presence and moved into identification.
Now you’re thinking as the thought, feeling what it suggests, reacting from its momentum.

And often, we don’t even notice we’ve climbed aboard.
We find ourselves deep inside the thought, emotionally caught, before we realise we’ve moved.

But here’s the quiet truth:
The moment you notice, you can return.
You don’t have to finish the ride.
You don’t have to argue with the thought, or push it away.
You just step off.

The best moment to return is always now.

Presence isn’t the absence of thought.
It’s the refusal to be pulled.

As you practise this, you start noticing something new.
You feel the pull of thought, but your feet stay grounded.
You see the story passing, but you don’t enter it.
You remain.

This is what stability feels like, not empty, not blank, but steady.
And in that steadiness, something else becomes possible: clarity.

From the platform, you see every train for what it is.
You’re not inside its noise, not tangled in its emotion.
You’re still, watching. Not distant. Just free.

And from that freedom, something deeper begins to open:
Real listening.

Not to the thought.
But to the world.

And to the silence beneath it all.

[Pause]

Section 5: Listening Without Narrating – The Return to Silence

When was the last time you truly listened, without adding anything?

Not planning a reply.
Not turning it into a story.
Not relating it to something from your past.
Just… listening.

Most of us have forgotten how.

We don’t hear what’s said. We hear our reactions to it. A sound comes, and almost instantly, it’s wrapped in commentary. We judge it, label it, decide how we feel about it. The sound isn’t the issue, it’s the narrator that steps in.

But here’s something quietly powerful:
You can’t consciously narrate and consciously echo at the same time.

There is only one inner voice at a time. So if you take hold of that voice with your attention, you can reclaim the space it normally fills.

This is the purpose of the practice we’ll introduce in this episode. A simple discipline of repeating what you hear, not aloud, but silently, inwardly. Not interpreting. Not evaluating. Just echoing.

You hear a bird, and you echo the sound.
You hear someone speak, and you echo their words, syllable by syllable, just behind them.
You hear the wind, and you mirror the rhythm, the breath of it.

No story. No reaction. Just a silent reflection.

In doing this, you reclaim your attention. You anchor it.
The outer sound enters. Your echo follows. Nothing else.

And when you do this for even a few minutes, something subtle shifts:
The thoughts quiet down. The commentary fades. The train still passes, but it doesn’t pull.

Because your attention is already engaged, consciously, gently, deliberately.

This is the beginning of real listening. Not just to the world, but to yourself.
Because in the absence of narration, you begin to hear the deeper silence beneath it all.

Not the silence of no sound, but the silence of no interference.

This is where judgment falls away.
This is where presence takes hold.

And it starts simply, with echoing what is already here.
No interpretation. No commentary. Only presence remains.
[Pause]

Section 6: Double Anchors: Echo and Verification

The moment we stop believing every thought we think, something remarkable begins to happen.

We start to verify.

Not harshly. Not critically. Just clearly.

We are learning machines. We absorb rapidly, especially as children. But if we do not learn to verify what we’ve absorbed, we carry contradictions within us, opposing beliefs, unresolved impressions, half-truths dressed as certainties.

These contradictions split us. One part believes one thing. Another believes the opposite. And because both seem true in the moment, we rarely notice the disharmony, until it begins to leak. Into our reactions. Our emotions. Our relationships.

But verification restores unity.

It’s not about doubting everything. It’s about pausing, just long enough to ask,
“Is this absolutely true?”

A worry arises: “They must be angry with me.”
Pause. Is that true right now?

A belief returns: “I always mess things up.”
Pause. Is that true now, or just an old voice returning?

You don’t have to answer with logic.
Just asking the question creates distance. Enough to see that a thought is not a fact, and that what feels true is not always so.

And in that space, presence returns.

To help anchor that presence, we offer a second tool. One that gently interrupts mechanical narration before it takes over.

It’s called Echo.

Whenever a sound arises, whether it’s a voice, a bird, or the hum of the world, let it enter. Then silently echo it inwardly.

No evaluation. No inner commentary.
Just the sound. And then the echo.

When someone speaks, we’re usually not listening.
We’re waiting.
Waiting for our chance to respond. Rehearsing what we want to say next.
Often, we don’t even hear the second half of their sentence, because we’ve already left to prepare our reply.

But when you echo instead of narrate, something changes.
You stay.
You hear every word.
You hold space for what’s being said, rather than rushing in with your next thought.

People feel this.
When someone really listens, without interrupting, without reacting, without drifting, they feel it.
And when you echo someone’s words, not aloud, but inwardly, they feel heard.
You remember what they said.
They feel received.

And so do you.

Because every time you echo, you also place a gentle pause between what is said and how you react to it.
That pause is presence.
That pause is power.

You start to notice that their words are just sounds, until you give them meaning.
You start to see that meaning arises in you, not in them.
You realise that most of the impact doesn’t come from what was said… but from how you met it.

And the more you practice this, the better you get.
Your bandwidth increases.
Your attention stabilises.

You stay in the real world, not your imagined one.

You echo, instead of react.
You anchor, instead of wander.
You verify, instead of assume.

And in that still space, you begin to hear not only the world, but yourself.
The real you.
Quiet. Present. Free.

So, begin right now.
Even with this episode.
Rewind to the beginning and try it.
As you listen, silently echo each word.
Notice what changes.
Notice how much more you absorb.
How much more you retain.
And how much quieter the noise becomes, inside and out.

[Pause]

Section 7: Daily Integration – The Muscle of Presence

Presence doesn’t arrive all at once.
It’s built, moment by moment, by how you meet the day.

This is your practice now.
Echo.
Every echoing day.

It may feel unnatural at first.
Like a new muscle being flexed.
You’ll likely forget.
You’ll remember halfway through a conversation, or not at all.
You’ll echo a few seconds, then get swept away again.
That’s not failure.
That’s the start.

The goal isn’t perfection.
It’s return.

Return again and again.
Echo the voice you’re hearing.
Echo the world around you.
Echo this very podcast. Let it be your training ground.

And little by little, something strengthens.
The practice deepens.
The space between thought and reaction grows.

You begin to hear not only others more clearly…
but yourself.
And when that happens, you’ll know you’re no longer lost in the story.
You’re here.

This is the path.
Not intensity.
Not force.
Just consistency.

Every day, as much as you can.
Until one day, it becomes natural.
A quiet reflex.
A gentle anchor.
A presence that no longer needs to be remembered, because it never left.

And that…
is how the story of you begins to change.

[Pause]

Section 8: Closing Reflection and Invitation

You are not what you think.
But for a long time, you believed you were.
And so did others.

You took on those ideas.
You echoed their words.
And slowly, without even realising it, those thoughts became your story.

But that story was never fixed.
Because thought is never still.
It shifts with mood. With memory. With time.

You are not what others believe.
You are not even what your feelings insist is true.
You are the one who sees.

And the more you see, the less you need to believe.
Not because belief is bad,
But because reality doesn’t need belief to be what it is.

The voice in your mind will still speak.
It will offer its ideas about who you are,
what they meant,
what could go wrong,
what should have been different.

But now, something in you knows:
Those are just echoes.
They are not you.

You can pause.
You can verify.
You can echo what’s actually here.

And in that echo, something else arises.
Presence.
Real listening.
Real seeing.
Not through the filter of thought, but through the clarity of now.

Let others carry their stories.
You don’t have to edit them.
Let your thoughts arise.
You don’t have to follow them.
You don’t have to make them stop.
You just don’t have to become them.

This isn’t a philosophy.
It’s a practice.
A breath.
A return.
A quiet choice, made again and again, to stay.

Each time you echo a sound instead of a story,
Each time you pause instead of believe,
Each time you see instead of assume,
You remember.

You are not the thought.
You are the space that sees it.

And when you’re ready to deepen that space,
To train your attention,
to balance your centres,
and to walk this quiet path with others,
Martfotai is here.

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Thank you for being here today.

Each story you stop echoing,
Each moment you reclaim,
Each presence you offer to yourself and the world,
Brings you closer to the truth of who you are.

The thought passes.
The echo fades.
You remain.