First things first. The internal dialog is not your oldest and most familiar companion!!!
It’s a totalitarian dictator, which has given us all a version of stockholm syndrome. 😨
Forgetting who you are (or more accurately who you think you are) is one of the prime anxieties of the adult mind. There's no shortage of songs and works of literature whose main theme is, "hold onto who you are!"
And this worry is made even worse by being so deeply embroiled and intertwined in human relationships, which can often seem to exist solely to keep us from seeing beyond our socialization...
50 First Dates - End Scene - YouTube
It's a depressing fact that most of us can't remember back to what it mentally felt like to be five years old (for reasons relating to assemblage point mechanics), with a healthy default mode network, and a preoccupation with the external environment instead of our own internal foibles.
Concern #1 - That you will disappear 😶🌫️ if you don't continually reinforce "who you are;" which is challenging to refute while still locked into the viewpoint that the self must be defended at all costs.
This conflict is well depicted in the I AM YOU!! scene from the film Revolver (2005).
We must concede, however, that when we compare the differences between Asian no-self and the function of the self with regards to sorcery practice, actually disappearing is more than just a metaphor:
u/danl999 - (edited) "The idea of Buddhist no-self is just a slogan used as an incentive to practitioners, to convince them the techniques will make them superior to others.
It's words only. Which can seem to be true because their techniques produce a tiny amount of bliss and minor visions, which cause people to self-flatter with the belief they will someday reach "perfection". So they assume everything they've been told must be true.
To increase their level of self-flattery.
Just because the words in Buddhism might sound the same as the ones we use, doesn't indicate they mean the same thing. You have to translate anything coming from Buddhism by using a knowledge of Chinese society, where "no-self" just means, you don't stand up and cause trouble in the social order.
No-self in China means drowning in self pity and fear of "losing face" to the point that you don't dare to stand out. But that's not so unusual. When you say "a selfless" act in western society, you mean someone seems to have cared more for others, than they did for their own welfare.
It's not in any way the same as a sorcery "selfless" act. Which might in fact even be ruthless, and look cruel and selfish to outsiders.
So as for China, a clue on what they mean by "no-self" can be found in a wise old saying you hear, if you do business there. "The nail that stands up gets hammered" in China and Japan.
When sorcerers say "no self", they mean you can literally walk through a solid wall. Be in 2 places at once, float up into the air, or do any other number of things (eyes open) which are impossible to explain in our current state of being dominated by the idea of a "self".
Our entrapment in physicality is defined by "self". It's "self" that makes us seem to be solid objects in an unchangeable causality driven universe. When we reach "no self", it means we aren't focusing our awareness on the elements of this reality, which prevent perceiving another one, so that our assemblage point can move." full text of the source comment
• • •
Concern #2 - That you will be at some kind of disadvantage in your social interactions with others, and in society in general, if you can no longer think like others do.
From The Active Side of Infinity:
"At home, as time went by, the idea of the flyers became one of the main fixations of my life. I got to the point where I felt that don Juan was absolutely right about them. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't discard his logic.
The more I thought about it, and the more I talked to and observed myself, and my fellow men, the more intense the conviction that something was rendering us incapable of any activity or any interaction or any thought that didn't have the self as its focal point.
My concern, as well as the concern of everyone I knew or talked to, was the self.
Since I couldn't find any explanation for such universal homogeneity, I believed that don Juan's line of thought was the most appropriate way of elucidating the phenomenon.
I went as deeply as I could into readings about myths and legends. In reading, I experienced something I had never felt before: Each of the books I read was an interpretation of myths and legends. In each one of those books, a homogeneous mind was palpable.
The styles differed, but the drive behind the words was homogeneously the same: Even though the theme was something as abstract as myths and legends, the authors always managed to insert statements about themselves. The homogeneous drive behind every one of those books was not the stated theme of the book. Instead, it was self-service....
[snip]
..I lapsed, perforce, into denial again, and I went insanely from denial to acceptance to denial. Something in me knew that whatever don Juan was driving at was an energetic fact; but something equally important in me knew that all of that was guff.
The end result of my internal struggle was a sense of foreboding; the sense of something imminently dangerous coming at me.
I made extensive anthropological inquiries into the subject of the flyers in other cultures, but I couldn't find any references to them anywhere. Don Juan seemed to be the only source of information about this matter.
The next time I saw him, I instantly jumped to talk about the flyers...
[snip]
"...The flyers' mind has not left you," don Juan said. "It has been seriously injured. It's trying its best to rearrange its relationship with you. But something in you is severed forever. The flyer knows that. The real danger is that the flyers' mind may win by getting you tired and forcing you to quit by playing the contradiction between what it says and what I say.
"You see, the flyers' mind has no competitors," don Juan continued. "When it proposes something, it agrees with its own proposition, and it makes you believe that you've done something of worth.
"The flyers' mind will say to you that whatever Juan Matus is telling you is pure nonsense, and then the same mind will agree with its own proposition, 'Yes, of course, it is nonsense,' you will say. That's the way they overcome us.
"The flyers are an essential part of the universe," he went on, "and they must be taken as what they really are—awesome, monstrous. They are the means by which the universe tests us.
"We are energetic probes created by the universe," he continued as if he were oblivious to my presence, "and it's because we are possessors of energy that has awareness that we are the means by which the universe becomes aware of itself.
"The flyers are the implacable [* implacable—incapable of being more favorably inclined, or gaining the good will of] challengers. They cannot be taken as anything else. If we succeed in doing that, the universe allows us to continue."
• • •
And again, we make the concession that without that foreign installation, existence is no longer altogether predictable, or boring.
From The Active Side of Infinity:
""This predator," don Juan said, "which, of course, is an inorganic being, is not altogether invisible to us as other inorganic beings are. I think as children we do see it, but we decide it's so horrific that we don't want to think about it.
"Children, of course, could insist on focusing on the sight, but everybody else around them dissuades them from doing so.
Continuing, he said, "The only alternative left for mankind is discipline. Discipline is the only deterrent.
"But by discipline I don't mean harsh routines. I don't mean waking up every morning at five-thirty and throwing cold water on yourself until you're blue.
"Sorcerers understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations. For sorcerers, discipline is an art; the art of facing infinity without flinching; not because they are strong and tough, but because they are filled with awe."
"In what way would the sorcerers' discipline be a deterrent to the flyers?" I asked.
Don Juan scrutinized my face as if to discover any signs of my disbelief. He said, "Sorcerers say that discipline makes the glowing coat of awareness unpalatable to the flyer.
"The result is that the predators become bewildered. An inedible glowing coat of awareness is not part of their cognition, I suppose. After being bewildered, they don't have any recourse other than refraining from continuing their nefarious task.
He continued, saying, "If the predators don't eat our glowing coat of awareness for a while, it will keep on growing. Simplifying this matter to the extreme, I can say that sorcerers, by means of their discipline, push the predators away long enough to allow their glowing coat of awareness to grow beyond the level of the toes. Once it goes beyond the level of the toes, it grows back to its natural size.
"The sorcerers of ancient Mexico used to say that the glowing coat of awareness is like a tree. If it is not pruned, it grows to its natural size and volume. As awareness reaches levels higher than the toes, tremendous maneuvers of perception become a matter of course.
"The grand trick of those sorcerers of ancient times," don Juan continued, "was to burden the flyers' mind with discipline.
"Sorcerers found out that if they taxed the flyers' mind with inner silence, the foreign installation would flee, and give any one of the practitioners involved in this maneuver the total certainty of the mind's foreign origin.
"The foreign installation comes back, I assure you, but not as strong; and a process begins in which the fleeing of the flyers' mind becomes routine until one day it flees permanently.
"That's the day when you have to rely on your own devices which are nearly zero. A sad day indeed! There's no one to tell you what to do. There's no mind of foreign origin to dictate the imbecilities you're accustomed to.
"My teacher, the nagual Julian, used to warn all his disciples," don Juan continued, "that this was the toughest day in a sorcerer's life for the real mind that belongs to us.
"The sum total of our experience after a lifetime of domination has been rendered shy, insecure, and shifty.
"Personally, I would say that the real battle of sorcerers begins at that moment. The rest is merely preparation."
• • •
For beginners, the best way to get some initial momentum and thus level the playing field, before you have your first solid WOW! moment in the second attention, and way before the source of the internal dialogue flees for the last time as a result of years of silence practice and a clear intent, is to get into a behavioral mode where doing replaces thinking, and thought replaces fantasizing.
thought - /THôt/
- an idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind.
- the action or process of thinking.
fan·ta·size - /fan(t)əˌsīz/ - verb or present participle: fantasizing
- indulge in daydreaming about something desired.
- to imagine something very pleasant, or terrible, that is unlikely to happen.
It's a fake it before you make it stalking strategy, that begins to erode our fears. A strategy which won't remain fake for long if you're doing it impeccably.
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I was just going to add to the post that we have all sorts of hidden resources that come into play when the internal dialogue isn't present. Capacities that make the fears stated in the main post untenable/undefendable...but Reddit ate the first version of this post when I clicked save, and I had to reconstruct all but the first three paragraphs.
Talking about being a kid reminds me of a memory I have from before I learned to read, before 5 years old.
I was walking with my mom, we passed by a little market. I looked at the sign. I remember knowing it was supposed to be the sign of the market, but as I couldn't read, I didn't know what it said.
Then I learned to read later on. When I was passing by again, I read the contents of the sign for the first time. My mind blew away. The thing is, as I was there in owe, I tried to remember how the sign was before learning to read and... nothing. The memory of the sign became empty. It was like I saw nothing. It's like something removed the memory of it entirely. Learning to read removed my capacity of perceiving the sign without reading it to the point that I can't even bring the memory of it, it just doesn't fit anymore in my mind. To this day, when facing a text, I sometimes try to look at it without reading it, but I just can't.
Those changes of perception are indeed something very interesting to remember.
Very simple, all those memories are trapped in another position of assembly point. To retrieve them, we would need to move back to that same position where we were as kids. From time to time during silence, some of those memories come back to me, but I don't remember anything before i was 5 years old, too.
Thanks Techno! A few questions for you or anyone who reads this and wants ti share their opinion:
1) are you at the point where you can turn off the internal chatter? If so, what helped you the most to get there?
2) does everyone have an internal monologue? I recently realized that some of my friends were completely unaware of this concept. This was discovered when I mentioned to one of my friends that some lyrics were stuck in my head. Upon googling this topic more, I realized that not everyone has a narrating (or singing) voice in their heads. Are those people closer to losing the “self”?
3) I remember there was a concept of losing Human Template (or human framework) in the books. Carlos went through it and described as something that starts from the top of your head and “rolls” to your feet, like a carpet. I read the books in Russian, so not sure how this was called in English. But is that the same thing, in terms of losing self and losing Human Template?
Lastly, short story from me. At one point I ingested some magic mushrooms and had an intense realization that the voice in my head is a foreign entity. I felt like I was a spherical core of an onion like object, and all these additional layers of onions were experiences I accumulated through life that gave me an illusion of “me”.
The real me was this glowing consciousness, core of my being. The rest, including social self, my name, etc. was just a story. A very long story of some character that I refer to as “I”.
That realization and feeling seemed familiar, I think that’s how I used to perceive the reality as a child. Apparently at some point constructing the “self” occupied most of my processing power to the extent that it’s all I know.
Bizarre yet liberating experience.
It's a process.
And my success fluctuates (it's mostly a 'good' thing that I'm as stubborn as a mule).
The prevailing opinion in here is that those people are clueless. That they are lacking in their "powers" of inner observation.
Maybe children raised without siblings have an advantage in that? Just a theory...
And no, they're not closer to losing the "self," since you can't engage in battle with that which you can't acknowledge even exists (the inner dialogue).
Losing the human form is the English phrasing, and what will return search results both in posts here and in the books (in English).
Right on, thank you for the response!
I stole it for facebook.
Don Juan kind of admits there that the fliers aren't exactly what most in our community believe they are.
But doesn't go so far as to say they were just created as a worthy opponent for sorcerers who are learning.
Could be they exist in one of those realms you can't really translate over to this one.
I see plenty of those lately.
Odd things that are completely remarkable when you see them, so that you'd like to be looking at that any time you want, just for the enjoyment of it.
But then seconds later there's nearly no trace of it left.
Here's something I see when I can fully get rid of "the self" in the normal daily world of offices and rooms, where everything is well lit.
It comes with bliss that's so far beyond meditative bliss, you almost would think that meditative bliss is just an opiate drug. And actually not good for you at all.
I wonder if the advent of AI tech is in some way a response to most of humanity's inability to not fall under the sway of the fliers or flier mentality. Creating something that can be unbiasedly fact driven on a mechanical non emotional level...allowing us to continue feeding into our base desires, giving into the fliers demands/suggestions
What is the difference between "fantasizing" and "imagination/visualization" (for performance, critical thinking, or future success in certain aspects of life)?
Pure fantasizing is a refuge. An artificial escape. And that is incompatible with sorcery practice, where the intent (goal) is to uncover, discover, and explore the actual mysteries of the universe.
Visualization is different, and something that is greatly refined via recapitulating. I suppose the chief difference would probably be the relative lack of emotional involvement, in contrast to fantasizing which reeks of it.