What is inner silence?
In one of her interviews, Taisha Abelar says the following about stopping internal dialogue:
There are many meditation techniques that "turn off" internal dialogue, but they're not enough. Inner silence is good, but what happens when you return to work and are surrounded by people, and your boss is angry, or your children or other people are yelling at you at home? You want silence, calm, and the ability to resolve any situation, so during training, we were always sent back to the work environment, where we would practice calming internal dialogue.
You can practice meditation not only while sitting in zazen or in a cave, because I know and have spoken with Buddhist monks, Tibetan monks who have come to Los Angeles, and they say it's very difficult to maintain calm. They say the same thing in China. When the Chinese ascended to Taoist mountain temples and converted these sites into tourist destinations, the monks said that now that the world had entered their domain, part of the silence they had built was destroyed.
Sorcerers, however, say, "Build silence not on the mountaintop, but within yourself"—for us, this is what calming the internal dialogue means.
Stopping the internal dialogue is a practice that has always intrigued scholars of Carlos Castaneda's work. This becomes clear when we remember that after stopping the internal dialogue, a person begins to see the world for what it is—an endless stream of energies.
But what does stopping the internal dialogue mean for the average person, someone who isn't part of a group of sorcerers, but whose heart, with faith in the mysteries, seeks the Truth?
Internal dialogue is a habitual train of thought that forces us to follow strict routines learned in childhood and through socialization. It is the internal dialogue that solidifies the assemblage point, and we, individually and collectively as humanity, perceive the world in the same way. Inner dialogue weakens the tonal. A weak tonal leaves a person exhausted. An exhausted person sees nothing and understands nothing. Inner dialogue is a mundane way of thinking that each of us inherits like a "great" gift, without inquiring about its quality. After all, mundane thinking immediately tells us, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
We all dream of a party of magicians, a teacher, high mountains with caves and monks, among whom we would surely find enlightenment. We all need better conditions: not this job, not this apartment, not this country, not this... something else. But all we have is life. With its rules and laws, with its flow and unexpected twists. It is the only magical gift we possess. We stopped appreciating it because, at some point, we began to feel that it wasn't of the best quality, not what we wanted, not in the right place, and not with the right people. Only complaints and grievances.
But do you know what the Truth is?
These complaints and grievances aren't you. They were never yours. It's everyday thinking, controlled by the predator, that has taught us this maneuver. And we've stopped valuing what's most precious to us—our lives, here and now. Only magical thinking can teach us to accept life as a gift and begin to unleash our magical potential, leading us onto the Path of the Man of Knowledge. For the Man of Knowledge, it's clear that the world is a Great Mystery, of which he himself is a part.
Magical thinking isn't the ability to be detached, cruel, arrogant, or ruthless. It's not the ability to be better or superior to someone else, to run faster to wealth, or to manipulate those weaker. These are all the tales of the predator, who has carefully implanted such attitudes in our consciousness through everyday thinking, so that we don't even notice. The predator called this "knowing how to live correctly." And our everyday thinking has accepted this as truth. But this is a great lie and deception. Magical thinking is a conscious movement toward one's true self, toward one's magical nature. It is a striving for Freedom, for the Spirit. Magical thinking is the ability to be among people and do the best you are capable of, where you are, with what you have. It means being impeccable.
Freedom from humanity doesn't mean becoming a heartless, indifferent idiot.
Taisha Abelar.
You might think you need a teacher or a group to achieve freedom. This isn't true. Florinda Donner Grau, a sorcerer from Carlos Castaneda's party, said that attaining freedom is a solitary battle. Here's what Taisha Abelar, another sorcerer from Carlos Castaneda's party, has to say about this:
— Can we say that freedom is open to everyone?
— Yes, but only in an individual sense... Freedom is possible, but only on an individual level, in a completely fluid state, with detachment, without dependence on anything.
Let's summarize:
1. Internal dialogue is a typical behavior pattern and train of thought that we have learned through upbringing, growing up, and socialization. This is a product of everyday thinking, which is a collection of aspirations and ideas aimed at maintaining an internal dialogue within a person;
2. Everyday thinking is the cause of human energy depletion, the waste of free energy and personal power. It is the cause of human stupidity;
3. Everyday thinking is incapable of maintaining our inner Magical potential. It expends and consumes it for its own needs (the consciousness of a predator). This is why everyday thinking must be replaced with Magical thinking;
4. Magical thinking is ideas, aspirations, and impulses aimed at unlocking inner strength, accumulating energy and personal power, and uniting the tonal and nagual.
5. Magical thinking propels a person toward freedom from the predator. Everyone can develop Magical thinking, regardless of where they are, what conditions they live in, or what kind of people they live among.
Everyone has the right to freedom.
castaneda
taisha
freedom
