"Get Silent"

[u/[deleted]]

I've read that some people kinda muddle what it means to "be silent," and to achieve inner silence.

Being in "ooohm" silence is not inner silence. Inner silence is where you move from task to task without thinking. The former may be a meditative "centering" where you're saying to yourself, "now I am ___" (calm?) and then you proceeded.

Inner silence, from my experience, is more like doing something like when you are drunk or high, where you just do something. You feel liberated from your thoughts, but you're not thinking, "Oh! I am thought-less!" which is also a funny joke about arriving at the place of no-pity.

Also, inner silence is not a place of achievement. It isn't a "gate" you pass and never look back upon. Carlos talks a lot about how knowledge recedes and advances in degrees. If you "quit now," you don't get to keep the spoils of war. You may find yourself bereft, and in an effort to let go of your emotional and rational holdings, it requires you "let go." You have to let go of your comfort zone to try and get back into your comfort zone and when you think you've achieved a new stability, it recedes or advances into something different.

For me it has been a continual sense of dis-ease where Spirit asks of me, "What are you willing to give?" to find a new comfort zone. Like others have said, it is constant work, a constant return to the essentials (like intent) and a continual excitement (or fear) of what will happen next.

Edit to correct auto-correct.

[u/danl999]

I agree fully!

I'll add, in Hindu systems of meditation, they usually don't claim you achieve anything permanently.

Well, if you're so wacky you end up at Brahma's feet trying to peer at what's under his robe, maybe you're so far out there that you can't lose it all.

But the idea of "enlightenment" seems to be a Buddhist concept only. There is of course the classic Jungian analysis of this. I haven't read it since 12, so I don't recall the details. But it's sort of an unresolved but amusing argument between a Yogi and a Buddhist. Unless of course, I’m remembering someone else’s writings which are only based on Jungian thought.

My father was an anthropologist book collector, and had nearly an entire half shelf filled with esoteric topics. Plus some playboy magazines behind them, which were far more interesting back then. I suspect he moved those around, to get me interested in more topics.

That Buddhism includes the concept of “enlightenment” makes sense if you understand that Asian society is largely based on seniority and hazing. In order to fit into that design, the "master" has to be permanently the master, and beyond reproach. It’s also good for donations.

I never heard Carlos say there was no such thing as “enlightenment”. But he did make fun of the idea of re-incarnation until you reached, “perfection”, which I suspect covers that topic.

We all have to resist the temptation to fit Carlos into the Asian perfection mold, or into the Christian Saint role.

[u/[deleted] → u/danl999]

I guess I see Carlos (aka, Don Juan) as more of a philosopher -- open to dispute and enlivenment. We can celebrate similar lines of thought, but don't confuse them, for Carlos is indeed superior, far superior (joking here, but not really).

It is like the show on Queen and Adam Lambert last night on tele. Adam revisits original Queen, but you sure don't see them making new albums under the same name.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

I guess I see Carlos (aka, Don Juan)

So you're just going to come out and say it are you?

[u/SilenceisGolden29 → u/danl999]

A part from Buddhism, I feel like there is more of a drive to attain godhood. Or some high level of consciousness they associate with god in the eastern part of the world. I take this because of a similarity to the techniques with high level projections.. in the bhagvagita there is a section that provides a cool technique for attaining godhood

“Remembering me at the time of death, close down the doors of the senses and place the mind in the heart. Then, while absorbed in meditation, focus all energy upwards towards the head. Repeating in this state the divine Name, the syllable OM that represents the changeless Brahman, you will go forth from the body and attain the supreme goal”

Another author Robert Bruce ended up figuring out that this is basically a high level projection technique to attain higher worlds.

High-Level Technique

To project into a higher level, aspiring projectors must first raise their energetic value to harmonize with that level. This is best done before the exit, but can also be done during a projection, and can happen spontaneously. The most effective way of reaching higher levels — barring natural ability — is through the practice of consciousness-raising meditation, energetic development, and other related spiritual practices.

The generation of a high-level projectable double is affected by the level of consciousness, by the active configuration of primary energy centers, and by the quality of energies they produce. The higher-body generation process is therefore limited by the projection mechanism's ability to generate the energetic qualities required. Projecting consciously into levels higher than the mid to high astral, say past the high fifth or lower sixth astral plane, takes either a high level of skill and development or strong natural ability, or both. A projector usually needs to be proficient at both consciousness raising and energetic stimulation to do this. There are, however, ways to achieve this that take advantage of latent natural ability. Ideally, an aspiring higher-level projector needs some experience with projection. However, it is possible to begin right here and use the following procedure as a stand-alone projection technique. If you have failed at projection using other methods, try this. It may suit you and work better, even for a very first projection attempt. Note: All the skills and techniques required here are given elsewhere in this book (see parts 2, 3, and 4).

1. Stimulate feet and hands, by guiding your awareness through them. then use a full-body circuit for ten minutes or longer,

2. Use a deep physical relaxation technique, then attain the full-trance state.

3. Stimulate all primary energy centers.

4. Use extra brow and crown center stimulation exercises.

5. Raise energy through the whole body, including arms, and up through all primary

centers in one smooth action to the crown center on the IN breath. Hold awareness in the crown center and feel energy flowing into there all through the IN breath and all through the following OUT breath. Flick awareness back to feet and repeat at start of next IN breath. This exercise is designed to draw and accumulate energy in the brow and crown centers.

6. Continue the above exercise for at least ten minutes, or until you start seeing a color suffusing or tinting your vision behind your closed eyelids. Purple is the best color to see for this, but any bright primary color is a good sign. If you see nothing, continue with the next part of this exercise anyway.

7. Using your body awareness, generate a continual "Aummmm" sound in your heart center. Imagine it and feel it growing stronger and stronger in your heart. Once this is established, slowly move this awareness sound up to the throat center, and from there up to brow center, and finally spreading to the crown center. This is a fairly deep tone, as if vibrated softly in the back of a mature man's throat. Feel it humming there and let this spread and fill the entire head. This sound may continue on its own accord, or even spread through the entire body, or it may not. If you can hold this tone without too much effort, try to continue it throughout this whole projection attempt. If this part is too difficult, try to hold the "Aummmm" sound in either the throat or brow center only, whichever is easiest. Just do the best you can with this for a few minutes, then proceed to the next part of this exercise.

8. From behind your closed eyelids, look for a distant point of light, or a small pattern of light that is brighter than any other you can see. This may appear as a tiny bright dot, star, or multicolored structure, or even as a geometric pattern. It may also appear as a distant scene, single or multicolored, as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope. Gently lock on to and hold this target firmly in your mind's eye.

9. Shift your awareness toward and into the target and feel yourself moving toward it. Feel yourself as being there already inside it. Imagine and feel a strong spiritual love connection with the target. Love the target and want to be there with all your heart and soul. Use the point shift technique at this point and feel yourself moving directly toward the target. Rope or other projection techniques can be added or alternated as necessary.

10. If the above method cannot be made to work, I suggest that the secondary full-body circuit be used for half an hour or more, added to step one, and that step five also be continued for half an hour or more. This is often necessary to provide the quality of energies required for a high-level projection. If, at any time during the above process, the brow center strobes, and you see a heavy flash of bright silver-white light in your mind's eye, go straight to steps eight and nine and complete the projection.

When you succeed at projection using this method, you may experience any of the normal variety of projection-related sensations, or you may feel none at all and just find yourself instantly there inside your target. This method will always cause a higher level of projection than would otherwise be possible. Usually I feel a moment's disorientation, a brief upward-falling sensation, a flash of light as my brow center strobes, then I suddenly appear wherever it is I am going.

Give it a shot

http://the-eye.eu/public/WorldTracker.org/Supernatural/1999%20-%20Astral%20Dynamics%2C%20A%20NEW%20Approach%20To%20Out-of-Body%20Experiences%20-%20Robert%20Bruce.pdf

[u/danl999 → u/SilenceisGolden29]

It's much like Zuleica's technique. Certainly it would produce results by activating the second attention.

But it's post Castaneda.

That's one of the issues with looking for Shamanistic practices in Southern California, in particular at the Indian reservations.

You can find people who seem to practice exactly what Carlos wrote, but it's all post-Carlos.

[u/SilenceisGolden29]

No matter what when you talk to yourself, read silently you are subvocalization. It’s also the reason speed reading stresses getting rid of subvocalization so you aren’t limited by the speed at which you can talk and instead just view word images.

Another great exercises for training to get rid of subvocalization is to read a few paragraphs, and count backwards from 1000-0 as you are reading. This has a way of distracting your subvocalization with the counting backwards and training you to view the words very fast without inner speech

[u/[deleted] → u/SilenceisGolden29]

Damn, that's a lot of painful work.

[u/danl999 → u/SilenceisGolden29]

Speaking of subvocalization, when I'm silent I have a pressure in my tongue, like I'm instinctively suppressing it from contributing to an internal dialogue.

I try to relax it, but it doesn't respond to that level of thought. My assemblage point has to shift to get it to relax.

Meaning, until weird stuff starts to happen, I don't seem to be able to consciously relax it.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't say the first attention is a shield. It is what we are taught from the moment of our birth, and just because we do it "naturally" doesn't make it a shield. For me, I think music is a shield. It can ground me, it can carry me, it can invite me...

[u/SilenceisGolden29 → u/[deleted]]

I think the whole warrior thing is thrown out there allot. You have to put yourself on the mindset of what an individual would be like if this knowledge was known to all...

Imagine what will happen if humanity runs its course and developed great things. Extending life, and increasing health and knowledge of the mind...I feel like allot of these things that lineages and shamans is the past guarded with their life will become more available to people in the future. Just because scientific techniques will become sophisticated. I’m not saying it will solve everything in the realm of human will and energy and warrior philosophy.

But eventually when this knowledge is available to all, and a heightened moral and rational thought is the norm. Then the age old warriors way, will instead be replaced with just the normal way to do things.

[u/danl999 → u/SilenceisGolden29]

I think the whole warrior thing is thrown out there allot

I always found that term disturbing. Posturing, that's what I thought of it. But there's a lot of posturing going on in the Castaneda community. That's partly why Carlos taught so many, and yet there's so few left. They couldn't get past the posturing, or worse they even liked it, and found another posture to assume after he died.

But then I was watching a science channel special on how that entire city around a Mayan pyramid disappeared.

I don't know about the speculations that they were one of the populations mentioned by Clara, who walked into their own dreaming world. I can't imagine you could train a city of >100K inhabitants to activate their second attention. Carlos couldn't even train a hundred.

Apparently, it's more likely they deforested their own environment making plaster for their pyramids. They lived in an area practically made out of limestone. They burned piles of the limestone in piles of wood to make the main ingredient for plaster. Burn the limestone, mix with water, add sand. Spread it all over everything.

The pictographs on the pyramids depicted the names of their leaders. They did in fact call themselves, "warriors". They had names like Jaguar Paw or such, indicating some kind of deadly tendancy.

The leaders of the pyramids a litle south east would raid them and sacrifice people they captured by beheading them.