The Most Important Thing I Ever Learned
It’s one thing:
Stopping Internal Dialogue.
Everything pivots on that.
If you learn to stop thinking in words, then you become aware, not only of yourself, but also of your perception of the world around you.
Once you are able to stop internal chatter, you realise that you were entranced by it.
The world’s greatest hypnotist happens to be within.
But it isn’t in control in any way.
It’s more like a car driving around on its own, wasting petrol, and going nowhere.
→ See Part Two of this series:
I was quite young when I came across the idea of stopping internal dialogue. I read some classics from Ancient India, and gradually realised they were talking about stilling the mind.
So I slowly began to try it, hardly understanding it.
Later I came across the books of Aleister Crowley and gained a slightly better understanding.
After that I read Carlos Castaneda, and very much began to take it on board. He actually used the term “Stopping Internal Dialogue”. To me that was the most important aspect of his books.
Later I read G.I. Gurdjieff who emphasised the same thing, though likely Castaneda got a lot of his ideas from Gurdjieff and translated them to an alleged Mexican shaman called Don Juan.
Through my twenties I’d practice stopping internal dialogue say for a day or two... then I’d forget all about it.
You literally go back into a trance.
So you either give up entirely, or you keep going with these unintended “trance breaks”... then you suddenly wake up two weeks later, and start again.
In the end, after quite a few years, it becomes second nature. You might go into the “trance of normality” for five minutes... BUT you know you are doing it, and might let it run for a bit.
The point being: you choose.
You are self-aware.
As time goes on, you realise that previously you ran purely on emotional reactions in life. Or you acted according to the given emotion you were in.
You see that life for the normal human is going from one emotion to another.
You might need to appease some emotions — anger, irritation, depression, etc. And so you find some way to switch emotion — one that makes you feel good again.
Some people would make a point of going out with friends, and this works as a switch to make you feel good.
Or you might listen to music that is upbeat to try and break the emotional state you are in. Or you might use sad music for solace and indulge in your melancholic emotional state — that might even become your identity... and back in the day you might have taken up the Goth fashion.
As to me, I switched states by getting into a new interesting subject and reading books about it. Or watching TV series or films.
But I also would “become characters” much like a method actor does. For example I would “become” Captain Kirk or Simon Templar, and many others.
I did this from very young, perhaps some part of me knowing I was changing my state — and also it meant I could get things done, like writing, music, or dealing with difficult situations. I would become somebody else; I’d plug in a persona. So I was doing that naturally for some reason or other. Naturally a psychologist might say that’s dissociation, and a pathology. If so, it was one that worked.
Others take to alcohol or drugs to appease or change emotional states. That’s how addiction works for many.
The thing is, all this is unconscious.
It’s not done with definite purpose, nor with awareness.
So people are essentially thrown from one state to another continually and don’t believe it is possible to control mind/body states.
Literally people live mostly in a dream, with the occasional “wake up” moment where they feel very good. They have a peak experience. They don’t even now why.
It’s like everything is swept away and they have this clarity, like breathing the pure air high up in the mountains.
It doesn’t last long. Maybe a minute or two.
I had that too from when I was young — I noticed and filed it in my young mind.
Once I understood what stopping internal dialogue did, I saw that it was thinking in words that kaputed the peak experience state — often in seconds.
I also got a much better grasp of what the texts from Ancient India were saying. Enlightenment was very likely a “moment of light”, but one that you were able to keep a hold of... or at least you were aware it was there and how to get back to it.
Stopping internal dialogue impacts and is key to all aspects of life.
While the idea of “not thinking” would seem like a contradiction in terms — like if you don’t think, how do you get things done?
Well... let’s say you are working on your proposed career. You are able to use thought productively and in a focused manner.
You can decide to sit down and map everything out, such as the ways you will go about making your career happen. And you will also think left-field: look at how most people do it... then dream up a crazy way of going about it.
You then eco-check all of it. Basically, what would happen if so and so occurs... or what would happen if it doesn’t.
Because you know how to stop internal dialogue you can stay on track when you do think.
My maxim is: think when it is productive to do so; stop when it isn’t.
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