07-31-2009, 11:40 PM
(07-31-2009, 10:33 PM)Ali Quadir Wrote: I do know a little trick that might help a bit with shutting the inner dialogue down. It's a trick making use of the mind's normal programming. Just ask yourself what your next thought is going to be. Then wait for it to happen. If you didn't know the trick try it right away. You may notice the mind just automatically holds, waiting for the next thought. But since it's waiting it's not producing it. Until it notices and then starts to produce a comment about the situation. It gives you a little time to observe the silence and experiment with prolonging it. And there's really no way to do it wrong. (It's Ali proof) But I think it only concerns the inner dialogue.
Hi Ali,
This reminds me of an old joke around my family. Challenge someone to not think of a pink elephant (or a green tiger, or anything else that you choose, doesn't have to be absurd, but that helps). At first blush, you can't do it, because whenever you try, anything that your mind comes up with to think about, it automatically compares it to a pink elephant to make sure that it isn't one, and there you are thinking about a pink elephant. But with time you eventually see how to win the challenge. You consciously think of a pink elephant as hard as you can, imagining every detail of it until it eventually disappears. The exercise is much the same as you describe in that it puts the mind into neutral, and with time you can go there without the aid.
Another great way that I've found is to concentrate on that faint buzzing or ringing in your ears. Listen to it and amplify it, soon you'll hear another frequency, fainter still that overlays it. Lock onto that one and then amplify it and you'll find another and another and another. Kind of like the images that occur when two mirrors face each other. After the second or third, my mind is quite still. I suppose that we all develop our own tricks for getting there, but it is such a wonderful place to be.
3D Sunset