Introspection

The act of looking within oneself and examining your thought process or how you live your life.

Many Peoples around the world have this as part of the culture.  For some it merely took a quiet place and time to look within.  Others required more complex rituals.

Among some native Americans it took deprivation and extreme physical duress to reach this state.  They would either starve or thirst or endure harsh conditions in isolation until a revelation was made.  Sometimes hallucinogenics were used.

Some early indo-europeans believed the opposite to be true.  A state of extreme bliss usually brought about by alcohol or poppy derived substances could lead to profound revelations.

The idea was an is to separate the mind from the body. To disengage the physical world from the mind and allow it to operate independently.  Have you ever been in pain? hungry? sad? cold?  You know how distracting this is to your mind.  When you’re at work and you have a headache or you ate something bad or you’re worried about your home life.  You can’t get anything done because your mind is preoccupied.

But beyond that is something else.  When you go past simple hunger, beyond thirst, beyond pain.  When the mind becomes so saturated by these that it no longer accepts stimuli from these then the mind disengages.  It exists in a space all its own.  A mind free to think just for the sake of thinking.

I suppose some use meditation techniques to do the same thing.  Others exercise and let the repetitive motion lull them.  I wonder though if the results are the same.

All I need is some “quiet” time which is basically some time to myself to think.  No “distractions” and the reason I use the quotes is that sometimes I will go into a noisy hectic bar and find a corner to myself and start thinking.  I tune out the noise and lights and let people do their thing while I do mine.  I could sit in my room and do the same but there I wouldn’t have the guarantee that someone wouldn’t come looking for me needing me to do something.  In a noisy crowded place like that I can be by myself.  It’s like hiding in plain sight.

Haven’t had much time for this lately and I desperately need to.