Re: Tomi - A Challenge

"how is the "thought process" stopped?"

Thoughts cannot be stopped directly. This is the first thing that has to be understood... That thoughts cannot be directly forced to be stopped. Because thoughts are merely the servants of desires. Nothing is uncaused in the mind. If the thought arises, it is because something is there in it. One cannot just call the thought stupid and drop it.

To stop a thought, it is not a question of the thought, it is a question of the desire. Just examine thoughts and you will find that behind the thoughts there is desire hidden there that they are working for. The desire is the master and the thoughts are the servants. To get rid of the thoughts, one will have to first kill the master. If one goes on trying to kill the servants, nothing much will happen, desire will keep bringing on more thoughts, more servants to come. Kill the desire and thoughts disappear.

Thoughts will never stop on their own. They stop only when the desiring mind disappears. This is the meaning of being still. It means to be desire-less. As if nothing is going to happen. Not even the desire to know what meditation is. Be absolutely hopeless, because hope is just another name for desire. As a name 'desire' is not so pretty, it is a little raw and naked. 'Hope' is a dressed-up name for desire. It is a more acceptable name, but it is desire just the same.

The reason why there are thoughts is because there are desires there, there are ambitions and there are countless number of things that are unfinished that are seeking fulfillment. This is why the emphasis on understanding the ways of society in how it teaches its members to repress themselves... to prevent the complete expression of emotions. This incompleteness of expression is left hanging within the individual like a hangover.

For example, thirty years ago somebody has insulted you and it is still there unfinished; the wound is still there. Sitting silently and the hurt comes to the surface, because the wound still hurts. Occupied with a thousand and one things in the day and it is covered up, one forgets about it. But when one is unoccupied, the wound opens up, stuff from the past begins to surface and one becomes aware of it again.

This is the situation today. That the average individual that sits down to meditate, to watch his thoughts, will soon be overwhelmed by them. He will see so much chaos within that he will be disturbed by it, so much so, that he will want to avoid it. It may seem to be too much to take on that he will never try it again.

In the past it was more possible for man to just sit and meditate. Because he was in a healthier state. Man worked physically hard in the day, working the fields, when it was time to rest, the rest came easily. These days insomnia is the symptom of the times. His mental faculties are more stressed, more disturbed. He may have a less physically demanding life but mental state is more congested. The man that I had traveled to India to see understood this. He had devised methods of meditation that included various forms of therapy. Therapy was used in the beginning to help move the madness out of the body-mind mechanism so one would have an easier time to experience sitting in silence. A cathartic method in the beginning, sitting silently - the meditation part, in the end.

The body-mind is stuffed with chaos. In bringing the chaos to the circumference, what is left behind is emptiness, an empty space, a silence that is now available to be experienced. Whatever emotional hangover that is hanging there is released by allowing it to be expressed as totally as possible. This can help in momentarily stopping the thought process. That is why I pointed to the John Lennon video/song as an example and how he had creatively used the song 'MOTHER' as a therapy for himself (a near primal scream near the end of it). All that is needed to follow is a sitting silently and watching what is left behind to watch. A silent, empty space. The same can be done by setting aside a period of time for the expression of continuous laughter. Laughter may be much easier way to go. Better for those that cannot accept or cannot believe they are holding the uglier forms of repressed emotions within themselves.

So watch the thought process and try to understand the motivating desire that lies behind the thoughts. Become familiar with these desires, get to know what they are and where they take you. They will take you far away from this present moment.
Understanding desire and the relation to thoughts is how to stop thought process. As desiring mind disappears, so will the thought process.