Linear thinking is thinking step by step along a certain line. It has its place, but it is wise to recognize its limitations rather than to accept it as the only way to think.
Formal education, the gaining of knowledge, is typically bound by linear thinking, and leaves little room for expansive thought. Perhaps this explains why it is said that an A student very often ends up working for a C student.
As one grows spiritually, linear thinking, no matter how advanced, must be displaced with the acknowledgment that “of mine own self, I can do nothing. The Father that dwells in me, He does the works.” (Jesus, the Wayshower) and this includes thinking!! This does not mean we give up our individuality, but rather enables us to express it free from all the super-imposed limitations, the personality imposed upon us from day one. Every luminary in the Bible expressed qualities way beyond their personality because their God was so real to them that they refused to bow down to linear thinking! Instead they lisened for His guidance. From Science and Health:
"The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God. "
"This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter [linear thinking] for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace. "