Comments on: Silencing Internal Voices

By: chaya

chaya — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:56:58 +0000

One who thinks as an adult uses both sides of their brain — not just rational “think”, and not just intuitive “blank”. Thinking like a child is using just one or the other.

To be able to pray, connect to God, there must be enough stillness of the static/mental noise/chatter to hear the small quiet voice (not a literal voice as in Schizophrenia, an inner knowing). This is mastery, spiritual adulthood.

To be creative or inventive, the static is silenced enough to connect to Creativity. Music helps still some of this, meditation helps, prayer and study helps. Concentration required to draw an exact likeness stills some of the static. Concentration playing music, dancing, singing, painting, all do the same thing, allow the brain to concentrate and ignore some of the internal dialogue.

To not be able to do this one is more easily controlled, programmed, as they have no connection to anything else than what someone else tells or suggests to them.

By: chaya

chaya — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:53:28 +0000

Misleading. The lack of filtering Jill Bolton Taylor experienced was due to a stroke, not meditation. Most people cannot reduce that natural barrier with meditation without great effort. It is never for permanent, but quick excursions going and returning. Tolle’s calming the mind is not the same thing even as deep meditation.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:47:56 +0000

My understanding of Buddhist meditations that have anything to do with the constant chatter of thoughts is that NEVER does one deliberately silence the thoughts. I’ve heard this discouraged explicitly by accomplished Buddhist meditators and have never heard it advocated by any teachers that I trust. Attempting to silence the mind causes tension and anxiety, and as far as I’m aware is not possible to succeed in anyway.

The Buddhist meditations that involve relating to the chatter in any way are only focussed on being AWARE of the chatter and disassociating from it, ie. relating to it as an observer rather than identifying with it. There may certainly be people out there practising “silencing” their mind and calling it Buddhism, but I wouldn’t call it that. I would strongly advise against making this claim about Buddhism lest you lose a bunch of readers in the early chapters of your book.

By: James

James — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:07:53 +0000

I notice that on the link you provide where we hear Jill talk about her experience, she seems, years after returning to “normal”, to be very much in favor of having access to that silent, expansive side of ourselves. In fact she talks ecstatically about it. I have seen, however, many accounts of those who have this experience talk about some difficulty re-establishing the ability to function in normal ways. It’s as if it takes a little time to adjust to the inner change. Then there seems to be a tendency for a kind of intelligent spontaneity to take over, as opposed to the old sense of trying to control things. Thought is still there, but at a lessened level, and when pragmatically required. It also comes more frequently from insight rather than association.

By: NLP Book Review: Get the Life You Want by Richard Bandler by Steve Andreas’ NLP Blog

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:01:07 +0000

[...] Silencing Internal Voices [...]