Before we immerse ourselves in this week’s writing, I would like to take a moment to say THANK YOU to everyone who reads, listens to, and engages in the comments with The Hue-Man Experience here on Substack. This publication is now #18 on the Top 20 Paid Philosophy Newsletters on all of Substack, and I am positively floored with gratitude to discover this.
I greatly appreciate everyone who reads, subscribes, and engages with our growing community here, and today we extend a grand and golden welcome to all of the new subscribers that have been joining us over the last week. It is truly a pleasure to have you here. OK, let us get to it.
“Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence”
—Simon & Garfunkel in “The Sound of Silence”
If you are reading or listening to these words then congratulations, you are alive, in a body, and here on Earth with me and the other hue-man be-ings. None of us have been given a verifiable explanation as to why we are here, or what it all means. But guess what, we are doing it, my friend. We are living.
Please take a brief moment to consider your own resilience, because just being here right now in this psychedelic surreality that keeps getting weirder by the day is not easy at all. Yet here we are, living through whatever comes our way while learning more about ourselves as we build life experience through each new event.
We are all at various stages of conscious development in our collective journey through life’s greatest mysteries, and it seems that we each feel different types of ways about the gift of life we have been given. But it is safe to say that we are all wondering at some level what the point of all of this is, and ultimately how to figure it out.
None of us can give a verifiably true answer as to exactly what is going to happen when we eventually die, yet we are left to live in whatever way we deem appropriate until that time comes. And what an adventure it is to be alive, is it not?
Looking life directly in the eye while accepting that your body will one day release the conscious energy that powers it back into the void can be confusing and difficult. Yet it is something for each of us to confront on our own time. When we learn to accept the gravest thing that we can not change, our body’s expiration date, we grant ourself permission to truly enjoy living without fearing the inevitable.
Again, we are given no information about where our consciousness goes once its receiving unit goes dark, but we do have tools at our disposal to help us learn how to trust ourselves enough to live an enriched and fulfilling life while we still have the ability to do so.
When we learn to distinguish the difference between Knowing, Feeling, and Thinking, our birthright power of discernment starts to become strong enough to place our full faith in. What happens when we fully embody that faith is an experience that we must each create for ourselves.
No one can tell you of the amazingly magical wonders that lie underneath your smothering fears, because they are yours to grapple with. But you can and will uncover the wonder when you are ready.
Learning to discern the difference between actually knowing something, and thinking something enables us to completely trust our intuition, our inner guidance system, while the brain simultaneously creates thought-based spirals in an attempt to keep us “safe” and out of the way of life changes that disrupt engrained comforts.
When the heart says, “jump if you want to grow”, and the brain says, “sit down and stay comfortable here”, we must be able to discern which voice is which. Growth and comfort may eat at the same table, but they do not hold hands. And more often than not, comfort must be sacrificed to achieve growth.
Only from a point of complete self-trust can we confidently navigate the dark times when confusion overwhelms inspiration and we are left to figure out our greatest questions alone.
As we venture within to investigate our questions, some of them require us to travel beyond sanctioned roads of thinking where we eventually realize that there are no roadsigns to direct us in the back country. In order to answer our toughest questions we must learn to follow the signs of the trail as well as our internal compass.
How do we answer life’s biggest questions then? How do we learn to decrypt the messages that flow through our intuitive centers as we quietly stare into the void while it stares back into us?
One thing is for sure. The answers will never be attained when the mind is being pulled in multiple directions at once, remaining unfocused on anything as its focal point spins around and around the spiral of thought.
In order to decrypt the messages the Great Force of Consciousness continuously sends to us, we must first bring ourself to a state of complete stillness of body and mind.
Sitting down for a short period of time to breathe rhythmically slows the thinking action of the mind to a complete halt. When the mind is racing with thought it can not be properly examined because thoughts consume energy and take up valuable bandwidth. Enough of it, at that, to burn calories in the body like a car burns gas.
“While the brain represents just 2% of a person’s total body weight, it accounts for 20% of the body’s energy use,
—Marcus E. Raichle → research
Think about it like a race car mechanic would. When the car is on the track racing against the other cars, the driver can report malfunctions to the pit mechanics via radio so they are aware of them, but they can not properly examine and address the issues until the car comes to a complete stop before them.
Sitting still and breathing gives us the opportunity to slow our racing minds down so we can pop our own hood to see what parts of us need a little elbow grease.
The ignition to our bodily-vehicle must be off in order to achieve the stillness needed to do the work we already know we need to do.
“Brainwaves” are just what they sound like. Waves. And waves move through space between different points, in time.
When we stop the motion of the thoughts that our brains generate, then, and only then, do we become aware of what lies patiently underneath them within the silence.
Sitting in silence teaches us how to discern between thoughts we generate, thoughts that we pick up from others, and the feelings that stem from the way we are thinking.
Once we can do that, the knowing that lies beneath our thoughts and feelings coyly reveals itself, and it becomes our full-time job to develop an unwavering trust in that knowing. It may seem “too far our there” for some hue-mans to fully understand this at this time, but only from the silence can the grandiose answers that you are looking for be pulled.
Imagine that Beethoven is stuck while working on a new composition. The more he thinks about it, the more his creative juices slow their flow, and in fit of frustration he slams the cover on his piano shut.
He storms out of his house and walks over to the park to sit in the sun for a while, hoping it might help.
Beethoven finds himself sitting still on a park bench next to some random person. While that person reads the newspaper, Beethoven sits in silence for a while, focusing only on keeping a rhythm in his breath.
Then, within the silence of his mind he hears musical notes drifting toward him lightly out of the aether.
While his neighbor begins to scratch letters into the weekly crossword puzzle, he glances over at the well-dressed composer, unaware that the rigid man is currently receiving the inspiration to compose “Für Elise”.
Beethoven remains still so the man next to him has no idea that he can already hear the piano plucking the melody through the silence of his mind, and once he hears the brilliance in those notes, he immediately knows how to transcribe them.
The person nudges Beethoven, pulling him from the silence, back into reality, and asks him what a “four letter word for a symbol that denotes a musical sound” might be.
Beethoven can’t be bothered with questions, nor can he hear them for that matter, and he immediately jumps up to sprint home to transcribe the sonic beauty that the silence just offered, before the wind should wisp it back to its original source.
In this situation, what is taking place in each man’s mind is profoundly different. But how each is using their mind is also profoundly different. 100 years later only one of those people is remembered.
One never knows what the silence will offer, yet it always offers the perfect inspiration at the perfect time. That is, to those who know how to listen.
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During this week’s practice we will carve out at least 10 minutes per day to sit in silence. Sit longer if you are already accustomed to this practice. Our goal is to stop the motion of all thought waves being generated from our mind, and to rest within the resounding sound of silence that they veil so well.
We will sit down, crosslegged, with our back against a wall to help us keep it straight. We tuck our chin comfortably toward our chest to straighten our neck, and we breathe. In through the nose, and out through the mouth with our tongue placed against the backs of our two front teeth.
If a thought materializes, we acknowledge its presence, and immediately release it, placing our focus back on our breath.
We will practice this each day, and we will not beat ourselves up if the initial period of practice is difficult. Everything that is worth doing begins with a learning curve, and we are going to smash right though that learning curve to achieve our goal of stillness without letting our brains get in the way of our slow building progress.
Smash that <3 button to let us know that you will be practicing along with us, and leave a comment below to tell us how this goes for you.
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If you are asking yourself, “Who the f&#@ is this guy and why am I sitting here reading what he has to say”, then start here at #1.
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Thank you for being here, and we will see you again next Wednesday for another episode of The Hue-Man Experience.
There is resounding wisdom found within the silence