What is stillness?

[Steppingfeet]

Whether or not replying directly to me, thank you Ymarsakar, Jafar, Doomchief, LeafieGreens, Diana, native, and Louisabell.

Doomchief - "For some perhaps more advanced level of meditation is the notion that this silence ends nowhere."

I love this thought. Silence is dimensionless. Just as with infinity, there are no boundaries to discover. And how much of our attention and indeed identity is spent flitting on the noisy surface, consciously unaware of the infinite silent depths.

LeafieGreens: - "Wim Hof is a great  way for a Western mind to gain access to a greater understanding of the 'S' part of the whole 'M/B/S' system."

I didn’t realize that he had appeared in multiple places on Bring4th. Indeed for a Western audience I think he is a much easier entrance point into breath work.

In fact, I was taking his course last year with the intention of using it as a stepping stone for deeper exploration of pranayama. His work seems to explore psych-physical aspects, but doesn't explicitly explore the spiritual realm, at least in my limited taste of it. Naturally one can use his work for those means.

I think that breathwork in general can be one of the most profound disciplines for working with, as you said, the “S” part of the mind/body/spirit complex system.

Would be interested in hearing more about your experience with Hoff’s system.

Diana:
"When we are able to transcend those phantoms, and be present, so much of the baggage we carry is dropped and unimportant, leaving energy and focus and availability to that which is beyond those 3D concerns."

Beautifully written, this post. All that baggage, all those concerns, all of it: the passions, positions, intellectualizations…. all the noise obscures the silence and promotes total unconscious identification with the mind. This results in the ultimate phantom: the individual self, insofar as the individual is perceived as something which exists independently and apart or separate from the All.

Not to make an enemy of the mind and its passion play. It's just estranged and imbalanced and even pathological when not grounded in silence.

native -  "you might be interested in reading the Mandukya Upanishad (I recommend Enlightenment without God by Swami Rama. Swami Rama is one of the yogis mentioned in Nestor's book). For many yogis, the goal is samadhi, the ultimate stillness that you're talking about which is described in various Upanishads but summarized succinctly in the Mandukya."

Thanks native for the recommendation of Mandukya Upanishad. I’ve added it to my list.

“Dhyana” is the term I’ve heard applied to this ultimate, one-pointed stillness. An absorption so total that it becomes the chief practice for one seeking self-realization.

You mentioned Saraswati. I get lost in the names and offices of various yogis. I don’t know if that is the same author as Prana and Pranayama. f so, then I have read most of the non-exercise portion of that book and I love it.

His explanation of the primal formation and operation of the universe is the single closest parallel to the Primal Distortions that I’ve discovered outside of the Law of One. It could be mapped onto the Free Will, Logos, and Light fairly efficiently.

I had been practicing nadi shodhana for a period, and I really want to make a discipline of using the practices in that book, but as with participating in the forum, time is just so damned short.

Louisabell: - "(even before I consciously embarked on any spiritual practice I would try to "catch" a thought before it turned into an inner dialogue, and just sit with it, allowing the "information" contained within it to impress on me without words, this was my idea of fun, causing in me total wonderment as to where these magical packets of "information" sprung from!)

I suppose this interest draws me in, and I easily lose myself in the act of observing the inner movements of my own mind.  This interest is most conducive to maintaining a single pointed attention, for I could do this for long periods of time, if only my lifestyle would allow it. But perhaps I'm simply entertaining myself and I'm just an addict to insight. Either way, it feels good."

That is fascinating, Louisabell. I’ve read about people with sufficient presence of mind (typically through disciplined practice) that they can operate in such a high state of relaxed alertness that they are present for the inception of each thought.

I mean, I’ve meditated long enough to notice when a thought has arisen as I inhabit greater presence, but I don’t have this type of mental control and detachment you’re describing. Given that this seems to be a native ability for you, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn about considerable work in past incarnations (irrelevant though that point may be).
In the second paragraph quoted above you point to what is key both to the insight addict’s exercise and the entrance into consciously experienced silence: single-pointed attention.

That’s what I feel coming online more when I practice this extended breath retention as described in the OP. Attention and stillness are two strands in the same rope, so far as I can see. And I really want to spend more time there, as it were.