when you practice something · My Home Is the Road

When you practice something that in one way or another involves stopping the inner dialogue, many will likely be able to track all sorts of resistances in their mind. Such as, for example, "why am I sitting here doing some bullshit right now?" or "why not go earn a bit more money instead of uselessly staring into space for a whole hour, or even two?", or "I'd better go read something, at least I'll get smarter." And so on and so forth.

Such programs are often unconscious — sometimes we practice alongside them without even trying to work with them in any way, or we don't even notice them at all. And the effectiveness of such practice will be at a very low level; there's actually not the slightest point in sitting and trying to stop something within yourself — such a stop will be nothing more than ordinary suppression, and the problem itself won't go anywhere from this.

As long as there is conflict inside, especially one like this, as long as the Tonal hasn't befriended the Nagual and they haven't started acting as one (in other words, as long as the mind hasn't befriended the subconscious — the comparison isn't 100% correct, but it's applicable for this context), none of this will make sense, and it's better to spend a little time not on the practice itself as such, but on rethinking all sorts of reasons for this conflict — why it, in fact, arose.

And it arises, as a rule, from standard and obvious reasons. Firstly, the mind needs a goal — an adequate and clear goal; you must at least roughly understand where you're going and why you're doing this. It's also quite obvious here that this path is not for everyone — you can't say that meditation is necessary for absolutely every person on our planet. As a rule, people start seriously engaging in this after some kind of upheavals, traumas, falling in love with some guru (more often applicable to women), and sometimes from a big ego — to become a super-mage and take over the world, which is certainly a mental deviation; less often from a calmer and more harmless ego, but still an ego: to become an energy enforcer, a certified yoga instructor, to awaken kundalini in order to be more omnipotent (the key word being "in order to"), to open the third eye, or simply to improve all areas of one's life by applying magical, yogic, and any other technologies from this series. But no one, or almost no one, actually craves real change, sincerely and with a hand on their heart, without expectation of fame, praise, or reward.

Such is the path and that's normal; there is nothing shameful in this and there cannot be, just as there is nothing shameful in the very presence of the ego, which is as much a part of our nature as everything else in us. The same remedy can be both medicine and poison; the same goes for the ego — you simply need to learn to work with it, harness its best sides for your own benefit, and if you see only negativity in it, then take a closer look — perhaps you haven't examined this phenomenon well enough. In the process of one's development, a person begins to better understand what they actually need; goals can and certainly will change along the path of life, as will values and everything else, which is also perfectly normal, and the road appears under the feet of the walker — it's foolish to think that you can know your path in advance from the moment of 'now' to the final point, especially since there is no final point here and never will be.

By "seriously engaging" I don't mean 15 minutes of meditation in some yoga circle or sitting at home, understanding meditation here merely as a way to calm your thought-churner and nothing more (meditation is generally a pretty overused word and its meaning has long been hopelessly lost); I'm talking about an actual change in you as a spiritual unit. We're talking about real change that quality meditation practice brings, and you need to be internally ready for these changes; you need to have the resolve to go deeper in your current practice than you have before. And if there is no such resolve, then it's time to engage in analysis on the topic of "why am I not letting myself go further, where am I holding myself back, what am I afraid of, what am I not yet ready to accept, etc." This will be far more effective than just stupidly sitting and spacing out for an hour at some point, candle flame, painting, starry sky, etc., when subconsciously you are unbalanced and don't accept what you're trying to do right now.

You need to be able to negotiate with the mind. It can be both a reliable and very strong companion, and an insurmountable obstacle. Explain to your mind why you are doing what you are doing; try to speak its language. Write down a plan of action, tell it your strategy, respect it. Put your thoughts in order. And here I'm not talking about getting rid of them entirely — that's impractical and, in my opinion and experience, it simply won't work. The fact that you've stopped noticing any thoughts inside your mental apparatus doesn't necessarily mean they've disappeared — similar to how if you hide under a blanket, it doesn't mean the bogeyman won't get to you — open your eyes and see the actual picture of what is — it's impractical and unwise, and in the case of the bogeyman, it's even dangerous to deny reality; it's safer and more correct to see it. What's needed is precisely to bring order, to connect the loose ends of different wires and link the mechanism of the cause-and-effect apparatus into one whole, periodically throwing out everything superfluous and outdated from it. It is order that leads to a smooth and harmonious stop of the inner dialogue, not cunning, escape, and deception.

Without learning to negotiate with the mind, there can be no talk of any progress in magical practices, nor in meditation practices. The mind is what forms the Tonal (the sphere of the known) and holds it in the form in which we perceive it, and it is precisely through the Tonal that the Nagual (the unknown, the flip side of the world, the looking-glass) manifests. Keep the Tonal clean and orderly, and the power of the Nagual will begin to manifest in your life naturally, and your practices will become much more fruitful and effective.

#ArthurOHarra #Tonal #Nagual #SID #StoppingTheInnerDialogue #Contemplation #Meditation #Mind #PracticesOfConcentration #FocusOfAttention