Re: First 3 steps- questions-experience-clarification

["Chuck" <seawinder@...>]

Mine is going to be an overall general reply. I'm sorry, I haven't 
the time at work (grins) to post more detail.

I recall about 23 years ago when I was first attempting 
visualizations and thought control that I ran across some good yoga 
texts.

There are some very helpful different methods used.

Chopping down the tree;
when a thought occurs, don't follow it willy nilly wherever it will 
lead, but... follow it to where it begins from. When you have an 
idea of where the thought came from, chop it down as if you had an 
axe in your hand (your will's hand) and you will see immediately a 
thought occur just before where you just chopped. Keep up this 
exercise always chopping further and further down the tree. The tree 
chops by the way clear through and chopped off and tumbles away with 
one swing.

Thought balloons.
Locate one thought and follow it up, form a baloon bubble around it 
and follow it floating into the air/sky. Keep focusing on this 
thought bubble.

The benefits of this type of meditation is that it has no other 
focus to it. Therefore it won't (as perhaps image filled tatvaw) 
lead to manifestations of other thoughts and images. It is simply 
you working with your thought and your will. Applying your will.

This worked wonders with me as I was trying all kinds of other 
methods and nothing seemed to work, mostly I'd always get frustrated 
and in touch with that emotion only, or angry, or I'd fall asleep.

Hope this helps some.
Chuck