The Impersonal Life

My heart burns for it.

Namaste,
JL

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Starman

Silence is much larger, bigger, and more spread throughout creation, than noise or sound.
Silence is in the background of noise, it is always present, while noise or sound comes and goes.

To experience silence all you have to do is remove the noise, silence is always there. Noise is
usually on a loop, a pattern within us that we have to break. If we let our mind, or thoughts,
run free 23-hours a day, it is going to be difficult to quiet our thoughts for just one hour.

We may want to get to a point where we are quiet inside most of the time and using our
thoughts only a few hours a day. This is done by continually nurturing the silence within us.
The best way I know to do this is by a consistent meditation practice, and staying with that
meditation experience and nurturing it all through the day.

Some people do have a strong mind, or they have deeply developed engrained thinking
patterns. Compliment your meditation practice with relaxation techniques, a relaxing
Epsom salt or apple cider vinegar bath, stretching exercises, etc. It takes time and a
consistent practice to achieve inner silence. But the thing is, don’t worry about it.
Worry feeds the mind and you want to learn to quiet your mind.

Quieting the mind is something most people have never experienced but it is something all should be striving to do because once you obtain it, then the magick begins.

[Native spirit]

Have to Echo what Bigjohn has said



Namaste

[Starman]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

Quieting the mind is something most people have never experienced but it is something all should be striving to do because once you obtain it, then the magick begins.

BJ, you are so correct in what you have said; most people only know their thoughts, and it took me a long time to trust inner silence because all I knew, and trusted, where my thoughts. But since acquiring a deeper since of silence within me, it now feels so natural.

To be quiet inside feels more natural than having all of the thinking chatter, and it is in that deep silence that the madness ends and the magic begins. But we have to work at being quiet inside, for most it will not come instantly. After decades of practicing quiet meditation I still have to nurture inner silence, although the nurturing now comes easy.

I evacuated my house yesterday and drove about 600-miles to get out of a smoky wildfire area, and inner silence helped me do that with calm and clarity. Guided by intuition, which comes much greater with inner silence, I was able to find a campground for my RV, and my MiFi is working, giving me internet access.

Most of the motels and hotels along the way had no vacancy signs because a lot of people have evacuated the wildfire area in Northern California. It was obvious to me that there was a lot of panic. Inner silence is a very practical and beneficial way to live this human life regardless what situation a person may find themselves in. It’s amazing that everyone has a major secret to life right inside of them yet most look for it elsewhere.

[Starman]

There is a scientific study of personality but not an agreed upon definition. Each investigator is prejudiced by their orientation,
and they generate their own definition of personality, as well as working assumptions of the manner in which personality operates.
For the ordinary person using common language, personality is often defined in terms of social attractiveness.

The person with a “good” personality is one who impresses others with their ability to get along well with people. This is the
common usage. Beauty pageant contestants are typically judged on their physical attractiveness, talent, and personality.

But despite the plethora of definitions, there is some basic agreement among investigators that personality is a hypothetical construct;
that it is an abstraction which refers to an internal mediating state of the individual. Regardless, still the word “personality” is used in
varying ways by many different people, cultures, and schools of psychological thought.

Originally Posted by Starman

In spiritual terms everything is impersonal; there is no individual person, personality are but emanations,

That's relative to your definition of Spiritual, but if you look closely enough Spirituality is 'driven' by the personal. Where does your Spirituality come from?

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Starman

Person is and individual, personality are the qualities or character of that individual, and personal are
what that individual embraces.

In spiritual terms everything is impersonal; there is no individual person, personality are but emanations,
and nothing is personal. There are dynamics in place, cosmic laws, or conditions, that are immutable.
We are subject to those dynamics.

Whether we deserve it or not is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with what we deserve. We did nothing to
deserve being born and no one deserves to die. The things that happen to us in our human life have
nothing to do with whether we deserve it or not.

Yet people do take things personally; life is highly subjective but it is not personal. It is highly subjective
because we are intimately experiencing it, but anything we go through millions, and maybe even billions,
of people have gone through it before us, so it is not personal.

We may intimately experience something but even though it is so intimately close to us and we feel it deeply,
it is not personal. It only becomes personal for us because we grab hold of it and identify with it. If there is
no ultimate identity then how can there be any identification with anything. Nonetheless, what we embrace
we take personally.

There is a book on self discovery that I read back in the 1970’s. This book was written back in 1941 by
Joseph Benner, titled “The Impersonal Life.” Below is a link to a free pdf copy of this book.

http://stillnessspeaks.com/sitehtml/...rsonallife.pdf

Your post is very much attuned to the resonance of ‘truth’ within me.



Thankyou for sharing.

It’s perfect right now.

[Starman]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

That's relative to your definition of Spiritual, but if you look closely enough Spirituality is 'driven' by the personal. Where does your Spirituality come from?

I agree that how we define things are relative, or relevant to how we will approach those things.
Speaking only for myself, and in answering your question, my spirituality comes from a vast impersonal source.

I often refer to that source as “God,” and God for me is not a person. My spirituality is a presence
that engulfs me. Now from a Pantheistic point of view everything is spirit, but when I say spiritual
I am not referring to the things that spirit has created; rather I am referring to that pure source of creation.

Originally Posted by Starman

Inner silence is a very practical and beneficial way to live this human life regardless what situation a person may find themselves in. It’s amazing that everyone has a major secret to life right inside of them yet most look for it elsewhere.

I agree, at one point "my" thoughts and emotions didn't even stand in that power.

People who believe their thoughts are still stuck, right?

JL

[Starman]

Originally Posted by janielee

I agree, at one point "my" thoughts and emotions didn't even stand in that power.

People who believe their thoughts are still stuck, right?

JL

Its not so much that they are stuck, it is just that most are living in a box. Thoughts are mental constructs, all thoughts have a framework. That is why we can never mentally imagine infinity, because infinity has no framework, infinity has no beginning or end, no top or bottom, and no sides. Most people are not aware that there are experiences that go far beyond their own thoughts.

Thoughts have all of those things, sides, etc. We can have three-dimensional thoughts but most people only have two-dimensional thoughts. I learned this when I worked in the mental health field. Most people have poorly developed images and they mainly think in words. Words are concepts, concepts are constructs. We mentally construct things in our own head and call those things thoughts and imaginings.

Regardless whether it is words or images, they are mental boxes, and most people live in those boxes. Thinking outside of the box is just transferring perspective to another box. Now I am not against thinking or imagination. But people have their thinking mechanism running 24/7-365. When you quiet your thoughts you give your thinking mechanism a break.

Giving your thinking mechanism a break makes it work better when you do use it. You can make your images very crystal clear and the words in your head can be piercing when released from your head. I have also seen people with “thought disorders,” or mental health issues related to thoughts and imaginings.

We should learn how to use our thoughts or else our thoughts will use us. Drag us around, etc. In crisis intervention most counselors will attempt to slow a person down, help them relax and quiet their mind, and focus on the moment. I have just chosen not to live most of my life in a mental box, and also to allow my consciousness to expand beyond that mental box. Having a quiet mind is not only good mental health, it also can enhance good physical health, i.e. less stress, etc.