Do we "think" in Meditation? [split from Manu's thread on Witchcraft]
Manu wrote:
Connor L. wrote: What I DO have beef with is here supposed authority on meditation. She states that meditation doesn't involve thinking... but, it does in every circumstance. Perhaps she means that we aren't consciously making constructs with our mind (hence, brain doing = thinking).. but, even then... I don't think the wording is good. One can never clear the mind. One can only be with the mind itself. That's where focus is actually born. If she had said that meditation involves honing thinking, then I would have been more lenient on my criticism.
This is certainly worth its own topic, I would be very interested in learning more about focus as it pertains to magickal work. My experience with meditation is more related to what this author describes. And while I realize "thinking" is not turned off, it feels as if it is something different, as if I step out of the typical thinking of observing/evaluating into a different kind of thinking of maybe... feeling/being? I can't quite describe it.
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If one is focused, then one can actively work on the conscious mind. It can bring you stability, like grounding yourself before an intense, physical experience.
If one is anti-focused (or extremely fuzzy and not thinking), then one enters the sort of semi/sub-conscious state. Sometimes known as trance states. A lot of people do subconscious (magical) energy work down there... I've never been able to experience it.. SO, I have no authority to speak on it.
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- steamboat28
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- Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Conversely, I find that my best work on interior things--personal problems, faults in myself, etc.--are done in that anti-focus or "fuzzy" place. It feels more "yin" to me, passively allowing the problem to solve itself while I watch in awe.
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We can also be in Gamma states where we are focused outwardly and in a super-conscious state which gives us an awareness of our actions. This is a sort of "moving meditation" in which we achieve a heightened cognizance of our surroundings and of our interactions. For example when we get angry we become aware of that anger and are able to both be angry and step outside ourselves to evaluate that anger and thus be able to make decisions cognitively that will allow us to be constructive (and not destructive) in the expression of our anger.
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Thoughts and awareness of my physical state.
Thoughts adrift unbidden in my consciousness.
A silent and uncritical presence noticing those thoughts.
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