for your thoughts are not my thoughts

When the words “My thoughts are not your thoughts” are quoted, they are often heard as distance — as though the Divine were reminding us how small and limited we are. But what if this statement is not a judgment at all? We know what human thinking feels like. It measures, compares, anticipates, and tries to determine what life should become. It works to define and secure what has not yet unfolded. Perhaps this statement is not separating us from God, but inviting us into a deeper trust.

Perhaps the next thing to see clearly is this: human thought naturally creates a sense of a separate personal self — the “I,” the “me,” and the “mine.” Thought organizes experience around identity, ownership, comparison, and survival. This is what St. Paul refers to as the carnal mind — not as something evil, but as a way of perceiving shaped by separation. It is necessary for functioning within time and space. It helps us navigate, decide, and act. But because thought operates by contrast — by opposites, by this and that, by gain and loss — it cannot by itself lead us into the direct KNOWING of God.

The Separate Self

It is here that the Master’s words, “Give no thought,” begin to take on deeper meaning. In many modern translations this instruction is softened to “do not worry,” as though the invitation were simply emotional reassurance. But the words point further than that. They are not merely about calming anxious feelings; they are about loosening identification with the separate self that thought continually constructs.

To “give no thought” is not an instruction to improve thinking or replace negative thoughts with higher ones. It is not a command to suppress the mind. It is an invitation to see through the sense of self that lives by constant mental authorship. This is what it means to deny oneself — not self-rejection, but release from the identity that thought alone has created.

Thought has its place. It belongs within the world of time and space. It allows us to function, to choose, to respond. But when we attempt to approach God through thought alone, we remain at a distance from the very communion we long for.

Revelation and KNOWING

What then of the phrase “my thoughts”? It can sound as though the Divine simply thinks more intelligently than we do. In one sense, there is a difference — but not in the way we might assume.

Human thinking moves in words, images, and concepts. It analyzes, compares, and draws conclusions. It constructs meaning piece by piece. But what we call Divine “thought” is closer to revelation — to KNOWING. Revelation is not the result of mental effort. It is not something assembled from fragments. It arrives whole. It is seen rather than constructed.

When something is revealed, there is no distance between the one who sees and what is seen. There is immediacy. There is clarity. There is a sense of wholeness that does not arise from contrast or opposition. This is not how ordinary thought functions, where there always appears to be a thinker standing apart from what is being thought.

At first glance, “My thoughts are not your thoughts” may seem to describe two different kinds of thinking. But the deeper invitation is not comparison — it is participation. It is an invitation beyond identification with the thinking mind that continually defines, separates, and secures. Thought is not wrong. It simply cannot carry you into the revelation of what already is.

The words “My thoughts are not your thoughts” are not meant to leave you feeling small before God. They are meant to awaken you to the possibility that there is a way of living not driven by constant mental authorship. The invitation is not to reject thought, but to discover what lies beyond identification with it — the revelation and KNOWING that arises when life is no longer constructed from fear.

If this reflection stirred something deeper, you may want to begin with the central teaching that anchors the series: Take No Thought Explained.

From there, you can explore the full unfolding of this invitation across the series here: Take No Thought Meaning Series.