Along my path I read a lot of interesting stuff, I recently found a few words that I see as relevant to the field of learning PU. I took out the esoteric spiritual stuff and kept what I think may be of assistance for some, basically relates to how your imagination can hinder your progress (if self-realization is something you are interested in, I'm assuming most people on this forum are):
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"Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of 'useful' mental activity. Observation of the activity of imagination and daydreaming forms a very important part of self-study."

The aim of this short piece is to illustrate how imagination and the habits of mechanical behavior, are capable of filling our minds with the most elaborate and convincing of scenarios, or equally of filling them with trivial nonsense. Both serving only as obstacles on the path to objective truth, distractions created within to keep us under control.
So you think you're thoughts are you're own?

Just for moment, think of a popular song or tune, the kind that gets stuck in your head and goes round and around for no reason. Got one yet? No? OK why not try "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People, the theme tune to your kids favorite TV show, or maybe that annoying commercial that you just can't stop yourself repeating once you've heard it. Why are we doing this? Well, the unconscious act of repeating these things, suddenly singing "Its fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A." to yourself for no reason is an example of passive thought, of the unattended imagination in action.

The day might start like this: You get into the shower in the morning and suddenly your singing "Maybe Baby" by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Where did it come from? By the time you get to making the coffee you might be whistling the theme tune from "Sesame Street". On the drive to work its turned into a Bruce Springsteen tune. Why? You don't even like Bruce Springsteen! You haven't heard half of these tunes for years, they just appear as if by magic! As if someone were tuning your mind into different radio stations. "Its fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A." Yeah, yeah. OK, we get the point.

Needless worrying, identifying, negative thinking can also be examples of imagination.

So, why do we think these things? What is their purpose? Have we decided to consciously look into these subjects, try and draw objective conclusions, or do they just appear? If the answer is "they just appear", well that's imagination for you; it has a life of its own. Imagination doesn't stop to ask you if you mind it using your brain and energy in this way, it just does what it does best and keeps turning that dial to our favorite DJ's on radio "S.L.E.E.P"

When we think in repetitive ways, or thoughts just seem to pop into our heads, more often than not its imagination, passive thinking, mechanical thinking; thoughts that are not of our choosing. We think them to be our own, to be very real and pressing issues that must have our attention, we expand them, weaving impossible webs of confusion. Or worse, perhaps, we think them to be positive, fantastic, creative thoughts, insights, messages from beyond, thoughts that we begin to build our lives around. "Its fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A." Yet we never stop to ask where the thoughts come from.

This kind of thinking also serves as a block on the possibility of conscious thought, it clouds the mind making it harder to get to a point where one might stand back and take an objective view. As long as we allow our minds to wander off 'unattended' in this way, in a state of day dreaming, we will be no nearer to finding truth and the answers to our questions.

"Its fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A." I think not..! You get the idea by now, its only fun if you CHOOSE to go there.

"The second dangerous feature he finds in himself is imagination. Very soon after starting his observation of himself he comes to the conclusion that the chief obstacle to observation is imagination. He wishes to observe something, but instead of that, imagination starts in him on the same subject, and he forgets about observation. Very soon he realizes that people ascribe to the word "imagination" a quite artificial and quite undeserved meaning in the sense of creative or selective faculty. He realizes that imagination is a destructive faculty, that he can never control it, and that it always carries him away from his more conscious decisions in a direction in which he had no intention of going. Imagination is almost as bad as lying; it is, in fact, lying to oneself. Man starts to imagine something in order to please himself, and very soon he begins to believe what he imagines, or at least some of it..."

When we act in a passive 'reactive' or 'reflexive' manner, emotions are brought to the surface that we have no control over, again we think they are real, yet they may only be an automatic habit, a feeling recalled from a 'memory bank' of emotions that we have become accustomed to expressing.

It is necessary therefore to examine ones automatic 'thoughts' and 'emotions' in much the same way as one would the singing of silly songs for no reason, it is the same mechanical process, the same block on objectivity.

Next time you catch yourself automatically thinking a silly thing, or you find yourself worrying, or experiencing negative emotions, stop for a minute and ask yourself: "Where did this thought/feeling really come from?"

If you don't use your mind, it will use you.