I watched an interview with Nyei Murez and something she said, really stuck to me. When it comes to stopping the internal dialogue, we don’t necessarily want utter silence. We aim to stop the dialogue that reinforces our ego, our view of the self and the world.
And here is why that held so much meaning and hope for myself (as I can always only speak for myself). I was having so much frustration and anxiety when practicing to stop the inner voice! Whenever I would meditate/breathe/hike exhaustively (always in nature), and tried to silence my thoughts, things like “wow!”, or “mother, you are beautiful!!” or “Thank you!!” would still cross my mind. And I was under the impression that if I didn’t acquire 100% silence, I failed.
Now it seems like a weight of self judgment has been lifted! Like I am now able to be a bit more forgiving of those inner voices, and if they’re just grateful, then I shall allow them to be so without judgment, without trying to silence even the slightest “thank yous”!
It’s also taught me that having an all or nothing attitude may not be the best path. Before we succeed, we fail. Maybe many times! That doesn’t make a failure. Giving up entirely is failure in my eyes.
I will end before my logorrhea takes over and I start hitting on tangents. If you read this post, I’m grateful to you!🙏Thank you!❣️But before I end: Thank you, Nyei for giving another perspective (or clarifying) and giving hope to the struggling newbie!🙏❤️
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Techno’s quote, “you don’t have to force silence until your nose bleeds. Just turn your head.” Was the most helpful advice I’ve read; it really does work for me. I interpreted “turn your head” as placing your attention on hearing, breathing, gazing, etc. I dunno if it’s just me, but I can turn my head without talking to myself about it.
Interesting!! That reminds me of Nyei’s description of the chacmools: she mentioned they are all depicted in a reclined position, but their heads are looking purposefully in a certain direction- some look to the future, some to the past secret knowledge, but they’re all …. gazing (for lack of a better word) toward something in particular, with intent.
Also… WOW!! Turning your head has become muscle memory for “shutting up” for you! 😳❤️🔥I do believe we all program ourselves either thru internal dialogue, practicing muscle memory, even thru mere observation- depending on what and how we observe.
And you, my friend, have become an AMAZING programmer of your own program! How beautiful!!😍Wow!!
Thank you for sharing that! As a musician, the idea of muscle memory helping in silencing the mind speaks… utter truth!! (Now I’m beating myself up for not realizing that on my own! Oy! If there’s one person who cannot win with me, it’s myself!🤦🏻♀️🤭After all, I’ve been using muscle memory for decades, as a pianist! But sometimes I’m so blinded by things that are so close! As if I’m trying to appreciate the beauty of the Mona Lisa by studying it from a centimeter away!)
Aahh! The sooner I realize that I don’t just perceive with my eyes/brain/6 senses, but also with every fiber of my being, my body, the easier and wider the path ahead will become. If I could only KNOW this thing with more than my mind…!🥹🙏🙏🙏
Obtaining Inner Silence is one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do, it takes time and effort, but is so worth it. Darkroom helps, helps remove the distractions, while you work through the tensegrity passes, which also help with inner silence. It all goes together and works.
I thought I could just read everything and think about stuff and magic would happen…..haha! nope!
I've found that in the dark room, especially if it really pitch dark like a dark room with an eye mask, that it becomes difficult to determine if I am silent or not. In the light of day, the difference between yapping along in my head and _not doing_ that is much more stark. In the dark room it becomes murky. My mind seems to have a hard time forming words at all, and remembering things like tensegrity passes also becomes harder.
That’s gotta be quite the experience not knowing if you’re silent. I hope one of the Senior practitioners sees your reply and gives some input.
I have a bit of light, come through bottom of my door so, it’s not quite pitch black, I’ve found I get a bit of vertigo when it’s pitch black and I’ve gotten silent. I can’t use eye mask, it blocks me from seeing the puffs.
I’m only 9 months of consistent practice and still can’t flow from pass to pass and have to pause and think what’s next.
That seems so familiar, ugh! I question all the time if I was truly quiet when I thought I was! Like 10/15 min afterwards. Then I get bombarded with uncertainty and doubt: “what if the inner dialogue was so so ‘quiet’ that you didn’t hear it, but in essence, you weren’t silent! Just deaf to your soft inner dialogue/monologue (?)!”
If second guessing was one of the practice techniques, I’d be a sorcerer/seer by now! Lol!😂 (I may be laughing on the outside, but inwardly, exasperation is starting to bubble to the surface!)
From The Eagle's Gift- Chapter: Florinda
Florinda explained that turning the head did not mean that one sees into the future, but that one sees time as something concrete, yet incomprehensible.
this is actually extremely helpful. In my dreams I would try and block a conscious attempt at dialogue, but sometimes it is ACTUALLY ME
Sorry but… we do want utter silence. The little “wows” and “thank you” ‘s are hardest to eliminate but are absolutely still dialogue and It seems like you are giving up and making up your own rules in an attempt to avoid getting silent.
“Thank you” has an entire belief system of rationality implied within it that you are using to consistently orient yourself into a make believe situation within the shared delusion of a mundane hell world every 10 seconds. That’s the only reason we are getting silent. The world disappears when you get silent. It will not disappear if you are saying wow and thank you and other positive things.
I can’t be grateful for nature???
When you are practicing sorcery you are quieting the internal dialogue to redirect your intent away from the confines of language which is what is instructing you to self manifest the mundane world we live in. When you go long enough without a single word in your awareness, you will have no way to contextualize yourself into an experience of the everyday world and will therefore forget about it and begin to fall asleep with your eyes open and see eternity directly in your visual field(second attention).
That is what we are doing here. We are not just getting rid of negative self talk. The lady who you took advice from has failed to get silent and is now trying to tell you that it’s ok if you do the same.
You can appreciate whatever you want just not in the form of any dialogue when you are practicing silence. Why not see if you can do it without any words? Even positive words.
sure you can be grateful, but it wont get you to silence and collapsing the world. save it for the tonal
without being rude but Nyei didn’t give you any good advice.
in the books Carlos said that don juan pressured his students to enter silence even for a few minutes..(compulsion).
also 100% inner silence = 0% self reflection as Techno once wrote and 100% inner silence means that someone has reached silent knowledge as silence has «levels» for example 10% silence and you have reached the green zone.
The hopes that your harbors may not come true as Nyei failed to see anything (I mean second attention) as history has shown.
I would recommend you to stick around here and read the advice from the advanced members and not only that, try and fail here with real tools and help that will bring you the second attention in front of your open eyes every day.
Please, bear with me; if I’m to understand correctly, coz I don’t want to put words in your mouth- I need a bit of clarification🙏: do you mean that your (plural) way/techniques/path is the ONLY way to get to the second attention? And beyond?
The reason I’m asking this is that I know some Castaneda students/apprentices who claim to have “allies”, claim they’ve “seen”, “dreamt”, etc etc- basically reached a “high” level without doing darkroom work or magical passes (tensegrity). I have no reason to suspect them of lying, as I’ve known these people a long time, in real life.
without tensegrity etc? fortunately here are some true students of Carlos..
Having that all or nothing attitude doesn't work for many people reinforcing self- judgment and self pity which are the opposite of what is desired.
That view you made is a good foundation to step on your journey to practice. You have to have in mind not to go to the other side of this coin being overly soft with yourself and believing that you are doing progress when you are not. You should start having tangible results of ap movement to know that you are actually making silence. Otherwise is just hopeful thinking.
And when you get to the green zone and you want to go further you have to push harder eventually.
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From The Eagle's Gift-
Dreaming together
( Will..) is experienced as a force that radiates out of the middle part of the body followed by a moment of absolute silence, or of a moment of sheer terror, or profound sadness; but not after a moment of happiness, because happiness is too disruptive to afford the warrior the concentration needed to use the luminosity of the body to turn it into silence
" The Nagual told me that for a human being sadness is as powerful as terror", la Gorda said. " Sadness makes a warrior shed tears of blood. Both can bring the moment of silence. Or the silence comes of itself, because the warrior tries for it throughout his life"
" Have you ever felt that moment of silence yourself?" I asked
.."The Nagual said that it was a moment of blackness, a moment still more silent than the moment of shutting off the internal dialogue. That blackness, that silence, gives rise to the intent to direct the second attention, to command it, to make it do things"
Anyways, asides from that..it' s just horrible to have a voice that has to comment ( I'll save you the examples, there are plenty to choose from)on everything one sees.. like, that thing has to STOP.. at Will