We no more think our thoughts than we beat our hearts or digest our food. Thought is automatic, spontaneous and just as essential as all of our other bodily functions. We just make the mistake that our felt sense of self or ‘I’ is doing the thinking. We don’t, and can’t, choose our thoughts any more than we can choose to grow our hair.

Thoughts are merely revealed in consciousness. When we are unconscious thoughts are no more apparent to us than our endocrine system is when we are conscious.

Consciousness permits only an infinitesimal fraction of our brain’s activity to be revealed. And the felt sense of self or ‘I’ isn’t doing any of it.