Silverfire said:
Do you feel results from your void sessions? Clearer minded, subtle relief, or relaxed? Relieved of mental ails?
Personally I like to do my void as I lie in corpse pose after my daily Hatha Yoga routine.
I imagine a "black hole" in the middle of my brain where our 6th chakra is located, if any thoughts pop up they are pulled instantly into the void. This method works well for me, but more advanced SS may have better suggestions for you and me both.
I've noticed void meditations work better for me if I've already completed my daily FRTR also.
But that isn't void your doing just a mental clearing exercise.
If Void = total mental imagery off/total music off/total foreground and background off.
Then are you really voiding? How do you know your voiding?
At O.P. best piece of advice is focus on your breathing to act like an anchor. Your breath like in mindfulness produces feelings and sensations. This is boring because your so used to breathing you don't have fine sensations. Your breathing produces coarse grain feelings which are felt for the most part. But for the people who've delved into mindfulness not even void just simple thought observation or mindfulness they can experience fine grain and finer grain sensations.
Watching the breath is really boring to the self. One reason many find meditation boring they are so used to being entertained by high-technology that this low technology seems a chore or worse a time burglary.
You need to learn to watch your breath to instill void better. Void can be improved using the very same techniques taught by people all over the World. Simple breath observation is a process. Void is the active use of shutting down thoughts.
BTW void isn't to make your mind mush as Blitzkreig replied to me. It's meant to sustain your meditation and produce better results. If you can void 5-10-15 minutes in the future your doing good. Yeah you can void longer, yeah you can void at multiple points in the day. But it's not about eliminating the logical male side and it's thinking.
Void like mindfulness is meant to procure better relation between spirituality and real life. So don't think void is done for hours on end being a blank slate all the time. But as you keep pounding the phenomena of void more and more your mind gradually accepts it more and more and learns to harness the void.
Also many state void = helping me trance. So if you delve into void a lot or long enough trance comes into play. Same for mindfulness hell many even experience conscious-out-of-body experiences while mindfulness in other spiritual schools and are told simply "Observe".
I don't know if mindfulness is a detriment to Humanity. In other words observe and don't act or if there is truth in that. Maybe even for the Gods as they are priming you to a higher level will state continue observing, continue being in this state. For example I don't know if it is required to continue observing or be an active participant I don't know if it is some Ashokan Buddhist technology to prevent people acquiring technologies spiritual, mental, or physical. But what I do know is there is some truth in merely observing and learning to handle that technological plateau.
For example you mindful/void and experience a myriad of things. Do you A) Actively engage it or B) Simply observe and make the technological process affect you later in the future used to said sensations.
Maybe a middle ground for example don't lose your meditation composure but also don't fully dive in. Same for trance and all these meditations is it that we want to follow the middle ground and establish good habits sorta like exercise. Follow the middle ground not too much but not too little to build an eternal balance which we can be as unbalanced as we want without breaking the balance. Or do we carry on and instill more of this effect on us.
Again void is just like that not quite blanking your mind for hours on end or mushing up your mind to be a blank slate. But not quite ignoring certain mental acuity that requires your attention. Non the less if you can maintain void for 5-15 minutes maybe 20 minutes when you get there. Your mastering the exercise.
I don't want to suggest this as the alarm might scare you being in or falling into trance or trance-like sensations. But using the stopwatch on your phone is a good measurement. In the beginning 2-5 minutes to void but as you progress in void during these 2-5 minutes. You can go further and further till you've mastered 15-20 minutes. So the main goal at least 15-20 minutes which will carry your meditation further especially if your dealing with trance as many state trance and void somehow go together or met at key points and I experience both.
Not always but some can definitely state void helped me trance or void makes me fall into trance states easier. The main goal of void is master the control of the mind. To void out or banish away thoughts if they are annoying.
For example say you got a persistent thought blast it away and void out for a minute and it goes away. Sorta like a dream, you know how sometimes you dream recognize your dreaming, you continue dreaming then you wake up and in the wake up time the buffer the volatile RAM was cleared and you knew you were dreaming, even state hell of a dream session I had. But the dream poof gone and then like 20-30 minutes later the dream starts popping inside your head and maybe you recognize a dreamscape and then poof you remember the whole dream.
Something like that the thought is nagging or annoying or hell it could be a psychic noise in the air. And you banish it out of your mind to the point the only thing you remember is you had a thought, it was an annoying thought, but it's gone and not operating in my mentalsphere anymore.
Something to that effect only your training the conscious mind and not simply the subconscious or dreamer state. Your dreams do this in some cases you have a dream it changes and you forgot completely the other dream. Maybe a few hours pass after your wake up time or you are thinking about your day and poof your dream flashes through your mind.
Void is simply training like a muscle the mind to exercise latent traits to control and help the person. Maybe you meditate and your mind becomes full of thoughts. Maybe you just want a quiet mind or simply be calm. Again once you get into the habit of void it's kinda like the habit of trance. It becomes easier and easier and not just being able to trance and place in a trance during a session but speed wise you can eventually place yourself at WILL. You build a countdown on your trance and within the 5th count or 10th count your in the trance. Coming out the same you come out at will count up from 10 or 5 to 1 and your out of it.
Good habit with trance to establish a countdown feature to train the mind to trance within a countdown timer.
Void is the same way the more you train it the easier controlling the mind. But again it's not about ignoring your desire to think or process information or learning.