Physical Stillness to Mental Stillness and the Path

Many people are striving for mental stillness, and quietness of mind. Often spending years and not getting anywhere.

A lot of this is down to using a systematic logical approach versus a spontaneous feeling-based approach. With a logical approach we want to take incremental steps towards repeatable results. As a result you travel step by step in a clear direction. With the feelings-based approach you take a few steps in one direction before being distracted and taking a few steps in another direction. So, though you might experience many things but never go very deep.

Physical Stillness

So what must we do? We must deal with what disturbs the practitioner, we should make sure that anything in our control has been pre trained. So if fidgeting, itches, aches and pains distract us from a deep silence. We must first deal with these without the added pressure of trying to get mental stillness. 

This also builds another quality. The willingness to sit and be bored. When we pursue mental stillness we often dip in and out of a deeper state which means our awareness of time changes – Astral = timelessness, Mental timelessness and spaciousness. But if we remain present to our bodies aches and pains we remain in the physical – a normal experience of time.  So, the quality of discipline and will power is required to persist/maintain the practice of physical stillness. 

So what to do. 

1. Pick a position, it should be sitting on the floor or sitting on a chair. Not laying down.

2. For our example we will choose the throne position so sitting on a chair, sitting up straight with our back NOT resting on the chair. Our hands resting palm down on our legs. 

3. You should start small – 5 mins. 

4. Set your alarm for 5 mins and 30 seconds. Use the 30 seconds to get into your position. 
5. Once you have got into position you are not to move. No small adjustments, no scratching, no adjusting for a pain or an ache. 

I cannot say this enough, DO NOT MOVE – no exceptions. If you cheat on this there is little point doing it. In the process of going through just 5 mins some who are not used to disciplining their bodies will want to move, will want to adjust.

6. Wait for the alarm. Do not give up. Upon hearing the alarm slowly move and turn it off, imediately write down any thoughts that came to you in your journal.

7. Add 5 mins every time you practice up to 1 hour. Once you have achieved 1 hour, repeat it for an entire week with 1 hour every day.

The benefit in discipline and will power from this simple practice starts to become something you can feel once you start reaching 10-15 minutes with no movement. You are building up a power. This starts to emanate out of you once you can restrain your body for up to one hour. 

Real Life

Ways that you can appply this in realife is to stop impulsive = unconcious, movements or responses. 

So tapping your fingers or moving your feet up and down while sitting. Hitting your elbow on something and yelling OW when in reality it did not really hurt. 

These immediate reactions move into our emotional world as well as we perhaps here something that would cause us to respond unconsciously before but now, we can let it sit in our mind and consciously respond.

This also lets our responses have more weight to them as they are considered rather than automatic.

You can extend this training into providing yes or no  answers and providing no additional explanation for your decision. There may be an uncomfortable feeling pushing you to apologize for not wanting to do something, but this is conditioned. So this training helps rid ourselves of automatic responses in all areas of life. 

Mental Stillness. 

Now if you have completed the previous training of working up to 1 hour and practicing the additional suggestions in real life then you will find that mental stillness is not such a huge leap. In fact even in your previous one hour sits, you may have started to touch this void/emptiness and stillness. 

You see there is this force that ensures you do not move, at first you need to use it a lot as you get better you can relax more. The same is true with the mental practice you set the tone with an intention focused on stillness – notice the focus in on what we WANT, not on what we DO NOT WANT. So if your focus is on no thought, what would you get? Thoughts! Why because the subconscious does not recognize negatives only statements it perceives as truth.

Now is the time to experiement – as the mental stillness can be seen as the effect/result of the physical stillnes, this being the cause. 

Ensure that you journal every day that you practice in this way, there may be things that are not immediately apparent as to why that thing is significant, but over the course of 30 days you will start to see the connection between things. So images, thoughts, ideas, write it all down.

Lastly let us know how you get on.

If you would like to receive more info like this then you can do the free course on Perseus Arcane Academy.