Bardon's IIH comrades, invitation

[bardon_student]

Hello, I am about to finish Step I of Initiation into Hermetics soon. From what I've learned during this period of eight months of disciplined practice is that being able to consult/share what I have learned and also hearing what other practitioners are doing to accelerate their progress would be of great help.
Maybe here in this forum there are people who are interested to join me from now on during this journey.
Please let me know if you are interested, we could create a group for this purpose.
About me: Initiate and a member of a spiritual group for more than 30 years + Member of BOTA for 11 years.

Post automatically merged: Thursday at 10:52 PM

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

Pretty sure shilling isn't allowed, but cool that you're actually pathworking through IIH. I thought about working through it myself at one point but never got around to it.

 

[bardon_student]

Pretty sure shilling isn't allowed, but cool that you're actually pathworking through IIH. I thought about working through it myself at one point but never got around to it.

Two times in past few years I started IIH and after a month or so, I realized that I don't have the motivation and discipline to continue. It is demanding and at the same time transfomative. For example in step two you have to deal with and change all of your negative traits into positive. I'm not sure if it's truly possible. I don't want to lie to myself. Some negative traits are deeply rooted in my personality I was hoping to deal with them in some of future lifetimes. But seems like there is an opportunity to dig them out. What is required of a student in step two is work of a lifetime or more. I hope the techniques and solutions that Bardon offers, really work. This way you can not only advance to step three but also become a better more powerful person. Let's see what's going to happen.

 

[HoldAll]

Just be sure not to skip Mastery of Thoughts in Step One, it's where most people give up - without thought mastery/not-thinking/no-mind, you've got nothing, nothing at all; it's what separates the boys from the men. I've been doing empty-mind meditation for over a year now to reach that Step 1 goal. It's been incredibly hard at the beginning but I've never encountered anything so transformative... thought mastery really is an essential skill, laypeople have no idea how powerful it can be.

 

[bardon_student]

Exactly. This exercise of Mind Vacancy is absolutely difficult to master. It's more than four months that I'm struggling with it. Sometimes I feel powerless and I wonder why I'm so weak in confronting the huge amount of thoughts that are rushing me and ruling me as they wish. I never gave up though. As a detour I read Concentration by Mouni Sadhu thoroughly. Exercises A and A1 is so helpful. Last night I consulted a great AI chat bot, and it recommended that instead of fighting the thoughts I need to realize that the vacancy of mind is already there; actually as the true nature of the mind and I should find this silent area in my mind and focus on that, trying to extend it. I tired it last night and man it was huge success. I guess I witnessed the absolute silence for about one or two minutes.
Bardon assumed everyone is like him, I guess.

 

[HoldAll]

Exactly. This exercise of Mind Vacancy is absolutely difficult to master. It's more than four months that I'm struggling with it. Sometimes I feel powerless and I wonder why I'm so weak in confronting the huge amount of thoughts that are rushing me and ruling me as they wish. I never gave up though. As a detour I read Concentration by Mouni Sadhu thoroughly. Exercises A and A1 is so helpful. Last night I consulted a great AI chat bot, and it recommended that instead of fighting the thoughts I need to realize that the vacancy of mind is already there; actually as the true nature of the mind and I should find this silent area in my mind and focus on that, trying to extend it. I tired it last night and man it was huge success. I guess I witnessed the absolute silence for about one or two minutes.
Bardon assumed everyone is like him, I guess.

I recommend Culadasa's "The Mind Illuminated" (about a dozen copies available for free on annas-archive.org) for learning meditation. It's really not a question of willpower and subduing one's unruly mind by means of one's intellect - the more you beat yourself up for those intruding thoughts, the worse it gets. One or two minutes is a great achievement, kudos!

What has been invaluable bout that book is Culadasa's advice to keep focussing on one's nose instead of on the entire breathing process as is frequently recommended, it really helped me a lot!