01-05-2019, 03:29 PM
A few more points about these mental postures should be mentioned.
1 - When appraising, the mental posture we select is often based on what we tell and have previously told ourselves before with words, (eg, "I'm always starving by the time work finally let's us go have our lunch break"), and also what we imagine. We might picture the food in our minds, imaginarily feel the saliva start to flow into our mouth followed by an imagined sense of high satisfaction as we're chewing it. This will of course shift us to a posture where we'll be more likely to enjoy the food when we actually taste it.
1.1 - Considering point 1, it's easy to understand why someone might "actually like that song!". Simply put, tell they themselves they do, and the imagine themselves doing so, thus they move into the mental posture in which they do like it. A similar explanation can be provided for "How someone could NOT like that song?!".
1.2 - Using what we tell ourselves and imagine deliberately can help with getting into certain mental postures, (stalking).
1.3 - This is all mental work though, coming from the mind. If we drop our checklists, don't deliberately put ourselves into mental postures, and aren't operating out of habit we allow other things to guide us. Our body will "tell" us when it's time to eat and what it needs. Our spirit will guide us on our actions.
1.4 - There's no need to keep probing for guidance either, it just happens. As children, a lot of us were taught to keep checking these things until we get the answer our parents want to hear. "Are you hungry?" "Really?! You haven't eaten since breakfast, are you sure?" "Will you be hungry when dinner is ready in half an hour?" "What if I make spaghetti, I know it's your favorite, will you be hungry then?" "I'm going to make extra for you, just in case". Often, these conversations can be followed up later by ones that add blame to a child not being hungry. Dinner's ready, are you hungry yet? What?! Really? You're really not hungry yet? I don't want you to be irritable all night because you're hungry. I went through a lot of work to cook dinner for you. I don't want to hear you complaining that you're hungry later. I've seen all of these things said in the same conversation to some little kids, often day after day until the kids naturally give in. It's kind of amazing to me how much effort a lot of parents put into convincing their children to make themselves shift to a mental posture of believing they're hungry when they aren't.
1.4.1 - If you're still asking yourselves these questions or shifting into mental postures to please your parents, stop. Remember that your parents being unpleased with you is just a mental posture they might adopt anyway and doesn't mean anything. These are not permanent positions and it usually doesn't take to long for an opportunity to come to encourage someone to shift to a different mental posture regarding you anyway if you want.
2 - Mental postures are often accompanied by physical postures. This may be worth looking at in more detail.
3 - Sometimes when we do the "analysis" trying to decide what mental posture to adopt, we unconsciously use others as mirrors. For example, if I wanted to appraise whether or not my post here is any good I might wait and see what kind of response it gets. Then, based on that response I would look at my image of myself having written the post, (and probably the image of myself as a post-writer in general), and compare it to the image of the responders. If the response was positive I'd likely imagine myself as the brilliant author who finally gave this forum, perhaps even the world, the post it so desperately needed. If the response was confused or negative I might imagine myself as someone who can't string 2 coherent sentences together so that they can be understood, or I might just imagine the responders as ungrateful idiots, swine unworthy of the pearls I cast before them as the Bible would say. Then I would adapt the mental posture towards my post itself based on the imagery.
3.1 - Since using those kinds of mirrors and responding in such a way is silly and unreasonable, I'll try to avoid it. Better is to hope others let spirit move them to whatever mental posture is best for them regarding my posts, and write based on how spirit moves me to write, and trust that it knows what it's doing without hanging my ego on other's responses to me.
4 - To be concise, the weapon mentioned initially is just keeping a tiny bit of awareness on your mental posture. That means always just be aware of what mental posture you are in, what you are appraising at the moment and know when you are using mental images and self talk to adapt a new mental posture, and when you are using mental images and self talk to justify or reinforce your current mental posture.
4.1 - It's not hard to pay attention to this. If you want to enjoy life more, enjoy food more, music more, etc. you'll naturally start training yourself not to do this. After all it's very unsatisfying to appreciate things based on items on a list instead of putting your attention on them at the moment and appreciate them for what they are. It doesn't take long after you start training yourself not to do these things that you discover the mind hardly ever does anything else. This technique alone will bring you a long way towards a quiet controlled mind essentially as a free side effect.
1 - When appraising, the mental posture we select is often based on what we tell and have previously told ourselves before with words, (eg, "I'm always starving by the time work finally let's us go have our lunch break"), and also what we imagine. We might picture the food in our minds, imaginarily feel the saliva start to flow into our mouth followed by an imagined sense of high satisfaction as we're chewing it. This will of course shift us to a posture where we'll be more likely to enjoy the food when we actually taste it.
1.1 - Considering point 1, it's easy to understand why someone might "actually like that song!". Simply put, tell they themselves they do, and the imagine themselves doing so, thus they move into the mental posture in which they do like it. A similar explanation can be provided for "How someone could NOT like that song?!".
1.2 - Using what we tell ourselves and imagine deliberately can help with getting into certain mental postures, (stalking).
1.3 - This is all mental work though, coming from the mind. If we drop our checklists, don't deliberately put ourselves into mental postures, and aren't operating out of habit we allow other things to guide us. Our body will "tell" us when it's time to eat and what it needs. Our spirit will guide us on our actions.
1.4 - There's no need to keep probing for guidance either, it just happens. As children, a lot of us were taught to keep checking these things until we get the answer our parents want to hear. "Are you hungry?" "Really?! You haven't eaten since breakfast, are you sure?" "Will you be hungry when dinner is ready in half an hour?" "What if I make spaghetti, I know it's your favorite, will you be hungry then?" "I'm going to make extra for you, just in case". Often, these conversations can be followed up later by ones that add blame to a child not being hungry. Dinner's ready, are you hungry yet? What?! Really? You're really not hungry yet? I don't want you to be irritable all night because you're hungry. I went through a lot of work to cook dinner for you. I don't want to hear you complaining that you're hungry later. I've seen all of these things said in the same conversation to some little kids, often day after day until the kids naturally give in. It's kind of amazing to me how much effort a lot of parents put into convincing their children to make themselves shift to a mental posture of believing they're hungry when they aren't.
1.4.1 - If you're still asking yourselves these questions or shifting into mental postures to please your parents, stop. Remember that your parents being unpleased with you is just a mental posture they might adopt anyway and doesn't mean anything. These are not permanent positions and it usually doesn't take to long for an opportunity to come to encourage someone to shift to a different mental posture regarding you anyway if you want.
2 - Mental postures are often accompanied by physical postures. This may be worth looking at in more detail.
3 - Sometimes when we do the "analysis" trying to decide what mental posture to adopt, we unconsciously use others as mirrors. For example, if I wanted to appraise whether or not my post here is any good I might wait and see what kind of response it gets. Then, based on that response I would look at my image of myself having written the post, (and probably the image of myself as a post-writer in general), and compare it to the image of the responders. If the response was positive I'd likely imagine myself as the brilliant author who finally gave this forum, perhaps even the world, the post it so desperately needed. If the response was confused or negative I might imagine myself as someone who can't string 2 coherent sentences together so that they can be understood, or I might just imagine the responders as ungrateful idiots, swine unworthy of the pearls I cast before them as the Bible would say. Then I would adapt the mental posture towards my post itself based on the imagery.
3.1 - Since using those kinds of mirrors and responding in such a way is silly and unreasonable, I'll try to avoid it. Better is to hope others let spirit move them to whatever mental posture is best for them regarding my posts, and write based on how spirit moves me to write, and trust that it knows what it's doing without hanging my ego on other's responses to me.
4 - To be concise, the weapon mentioned initially is just keeping a tiny bit of awareness on your mental posture. That means always just be aware of what mental posture you are in, what you are appraising at the moment and know when you are using mental images and self talk to adapt a new mental posture, and when you are using mental images and self talk to justify or reinforce your current mental posture.
4.1 - It's not hard to pay attention to this. If you want to enjoy life more, enjoy food more, music more, etc. you'll naturally start training yourself not to do this. After all it's very unsatisfying to appreciate things based on items on a list instead of putting your attention on them at the moment and appreciate them for what they are. It doesn't take long after you start training yourself not to do these things that you discover the mind hardly ever does anything else. This technique alone will bring you a long way towards a quiet controlled mind essentially as a free side effect.