Chapter 9: The still point

The still point won’t happen because you tell it to; it is not a construction of the ego. It only exists when the ego goes quiet and has nothing to say. So every prejudice has been dropped and every reason to be something other than you are has evaporated. In my opinion, the fastest way to a still point is with the help of another person using the Boulderstone Technique. Alternatively, if you are on your own, a good way is through meditation. There are many ways to a still point. The still point, as a concept, is talked about in other cultures and is called mushin in Japanese, samadhi in Hindi, fana in Sufism and flow state in Western philosophy.

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As a result of trauma, lack of role models or pain, many people find getting to a still point challenging and they are forced to live in the world of the ego. Living exclusively in the world of the ego is a wholly unsatisfactory experience because you never deal with the reality of things and can never totally let go. Instead you are dealing with the superficial, the gloss, the man made, and the facade of things. As far as health is concerned that means you look at the symptoms of diseases and not their causes.

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There are consequences to dealing with symptoms instead of causes

When Western medicine chose to deal with the symptoms of an illness rather than the cause it slowly brought to the fore a whole train of unfortunate problems. The first of these is that every illness treated for its symptoms will never be cured even if the symptoms are ameliorated. Any illness that can’t produce the symptoms it wants to will produce symptoms that are worse for the patient.

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Example 1: Taking a painkiller for a headache.

How does taking a painkiller for a headache make the headache worse? The headache is a symptom, not a cause, and taking a painkiller for the headache does nothing for the reason you got the headache in the first place. The reason could be any number of problems: lack of water, stress from work, too much chocolate or even a brain tumour. The list goes on but the point is the painkiller does nothing for those problems, only perhaps for the symptom. In fact, the pill stops you having to think about the cause and allows the problem to continue.

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Example 2: Putting steroid cream on eczema.

My belief is that eczema, in many cases, is caused by inappropriate food substances the body attempts to excrete through the skin. When that is the case, applying steroid cream does nothing for the problem. The real solution is to find the food causing the problem and probably eliminate it from the diet. If the steroid cream works, and it clears up the skin , it doesn’t solve the problem. The patient will eat the substance again, cause a new skin issue and require a repeat prescription of steroids. Unfortunately, the steroid cream also damages the skin! The patient does not do well out of this situation.

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Who benefits from treating symptoms instead of causes?

Asking yourself ‘who does this benefit?’ will bring you face to face with an ugly truth. Clearly, if disease is never cured, the people who make the pills will financially benefit. Doctors will benefit by being in almost permanent demand. The hospital will always be under pressure and always need to be expanded. The National Health Service in the UK is already the largest employer in Europe, creating 1.5 million full time jobs but it will always need more people because it never gets to the core of any illness. When you stop natural symptoms from occurring, unnatural ones present themselves.

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Treating symptoms and not the causes of the problem is a mistake not confined to healthcare and is pervasive in the Western world. From dentists to car mechanics to teachers and more, looking superficially at a problem and solving that symptom makes more money and keeps people employed for longer. 

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Governments, also, deal with symptoms rather than causes, looking at short term gains and political expediency to secure election victories rather than potentially unpopular but more efficient solutions. This is one consequence of having elections every few years. Having governments in power for even longer, though, is another example of dealing with symptoms rather than causes. The only real solution is always a still point but, for me at least, I don’t yet know how to implement a still point at governmental level.

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Doctors get between you and your health. Doctors could be advisors and that is how they started out but it all went pear-shaped for patients when doctors took over control. Doctors still claim to be advisors but that has actually changed now. Instead they are much more dictatorial, assuming you are not clever enough to work out your own solutions. They have made the disease process much more complicated by employing laboratories, scientists, elaborate machinery and electronics, not to cure but to diagnose. And the diagnosis they come up with might be accurate as far as it goes but it is never the whole story. After all, they don’t measure health. What they do with their diagnosis is medicate, to remove a symptom, leaving you to deal with the real illness. No medication has ever cured, even if it removes the symptom.

 

The solution

There is a solution to any human problem, health or otherwise, and it is in your hands. To solve any problem you have to get in contact with the still point. Your life force has been with you every step you have taken and gone down every path you have gone down, without your ego confusing it. It knows you. Any symptoms you experience are as a result of the life force and I-force conflicting. And by getting your ego and I-force out of the way, you will find the real cause of those symptoms. I would recommend not calling the life force God, call it life force. Keep your beliefs about God to yourself as it does not help anybody to impose them on someone else.

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If you think you can’t yet feel your life force, get someone to help you. Remember to trust your body. Your body speaks to you with symptoms. Listen to what they are trying to say rather than cover them up with painkillers and other drugs. Sometimes you may misinterpret them and this will be because your ego gets in the way. However, if you have to take a painkiller to stop being overwhelmed, do so. If you don’t understand what a symptom is telling you, work a little harder. Your body gave you those symptoms because it knows you can work it out. You might not like the answer but your body doesn’t lie. Also remember that a solution lies in your hands. You do not have to go elsewhere or speak to or confront anyone else to sort out any problem. You have in your possession one of the most precious instruments in the world that you can’t buy, regardless of how much money you have. You are your own best doctor, but only when you listen.

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If you feel rough after a night of drinking then your body is just responding to what you have done. The symptoms are there to inform you that drinking in this way is not good for you. You are not being punished by your body, you are being informed. The thought that you are being punished is a childish thought and separates you from your body. This is what the ego does, it separates you from your self. Not responding to what your body tells you, tells your body it is not talking loudly enough and it will turn up the volume. That is why it is so important to listen. If you can’t understand what it is saying then tell it and listen in the quiet moments, in dreams and while in nature.

When you bring any symptom into contact with a still point the symptom will wriggle and contort but if you keep hold of the still point you will become aware of the cause of the symptom. By holding on to the still point the ego goes quiet. The awareness of the cause of the symptom might not come in words for it will be in the language of ‘knowing’ (See Appendix: The language of ‘knowing’). As you hold on to the still point, pain becomes sensation and fears and worries evaporate. While you stay in a still point healing takes place, for the ego can no longer get in the way.

 

Finding the cause

Finding the cause of illness is essential and no one can do that for you because the cause is always unique to the individual. For example, it is a choice to believe that nothing happens after somebody dies; that there is no after-life. A consequence of that belief can be that when someone close to you dies, their death, and also their life, can appear meaningless. Depression can result. The cause of the depression is the belief that nothing happens after death coupled with the question ‘What is the point of life?’ Those thoughts create an inner battle. It must be obvious that the inner battle is never going to be changed with antidepressants but, of course, that is what most often gets prescribed. Finding the real cause of the depression can be a difficult task when you are in the middle of the symptom of depression. The only way to finding the cause is through a still point. It is only when you are fully at peace that you will realise what is going on, that the problematic belief is a choice. It doesn’t matter what anybody says, that choice won’t be changed by anyone but you.

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The solution is unique to you.

Whether someone has an after-life or not is actually irrelevant. The problem is the rigid belief that everyone doesn’t have an after-life coupled with other personal beliefs that then create a conflict.

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Being diagnosed with a disease, like depression, doesn’t change the cause of the illness. In order to cure, the cause needs to be found and that cause won’t always exist in words. The cause will only be found when the ego goes quiet, in a still point.

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If you have an accident in your car and you can’t get it out of your mind, when it is time to travel in your car again you may well be conflicted. Your anxiety is the playing out of your inner battle. Taking anti-anxiety medication doesn’t get to the cause but getting to a still point will force you to confront the real issue. Your ego might not want you to do that and if you don’t, then you will keep your anxiety.

It doesn’t matter what anyone says, their words don’t change the truth. The thought that someone saying something to you can upset you and distort your flow of life force, without your collusion, is preposterous. You can take offence at what someone says but that is a choice. The idea that getting upset is solely your responsibility isn't a fashionable view. 

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Inner contradiction, and inner battles, are the basis of all acquired mental and emotional issues (as explained in Chapter 5) but are always cleared with a still point, which happens without words or talking.

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This still point is the only complete solution. Blocking thoughts, taking medication, counselling, avoidance techniques, violence or other mind games will not cure. Actually, they keep the problem in place.

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The solution to every problem is the still point. Even before you are aware of a problem the solution is the still point.

The best way to a still point is through meditation. However, if you have a broken leg, go to the hospital.

 

Meditation

Meditation is the single most important thing you can do for your physical, mental and emotional health because it shows you all the distortions in your flow of life force. People might say they can’t meditate because their mind gets distracted but those distractions are what meditation is meant to show you. That is the point of meditation. Distractions point directly to the distortions in the flow of life force which are the sources of your illnesses. If you process the distractions you are left with a still point.

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Every illness is caused by a distortion in the flow of life force, and silent meditation will show you every distortion. Of course bugs and viruses are involved in diseases but bugs and viruses can only get a foothold if there is a distortion in the flow of life force.

Guided meditations, prayer, whale sounds and other aids to meditation can lead to personal discoveries but eventually they become an encumbrance. The idea of all meditation, whether guided or not, is to show you where your distortions are and allow you to work through them. You have less to distract you in silent meditation and so you will discover distortions more easily. 

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Starting meditation

You can start by sitting and going quiet. Do you get distracted with thoughts very quickly? You have to decide if you need to take a break and sort out those distractions or ignore them. You can stay focussed by doing any number of things from counting your breath to chanting a mantra, either out loud or internally, listening to whale noises or a commercially produced meditation aid, but all these techniques need to be dropped as soon as possible. The best way forward is to use the lightest touch that allows you to stay focussed and mindful. Anything that doesn’t need an outside source is best, like counting your breathing, for example. Count your breath from one to ten and then start back at one. When that has been achieved without getting distracted, count to one hundred. When you can do that without effort, drop the counting. Choose the lightest touch that works. Remember, distractions come from a distortion in the flow of life force and need to be processed and can’t be ignored. If you ignore them they will get stronger.

Sometimes major difficulties arise. Find a way to solve them. It’s always possible, for you created your difficulties in the first place. You may see external events as being the cause but, if you look more closely, you will find it is your reaction to those external events that caused the problem. By all means read about how others solved their problems, but their solutions will only partially work for you. Realise all problems are solvable, otherwise they aren't problems.

All illnesses (distortions) succumb to the still point. Given a still point and absolutely any problem and the still point will always see out the distortion. Every problem is sortable.

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All meditation instruction that is aimed at only getting you to a still point will ultimately make meditation more difficult. The still point exists in you and is covered over with ego layers. The still point will appear as a result of meditation but only because you have processed the layers.

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This is the only meditation instruction you will ever need (apart from the 21 day meditation course in the Appendix). But you might need help with a particular distortion or difficulty. If you want to seek out that help, the Boulderstone Technique works well!

 

Nature: another way to a still point

You don’t need to be perfect to get to a still point. You can get there by overwhelming your ego. This is how drugs work, although they are not recommended. One of the best ways of reaching a still point while not being perfect is to be in nature. What is it about nature that makes it so special? Certainly nature has the ability to quieten thoughts through its unfathomability.  Driving home today I saw a landscape of fields and trees. There were so many trees it would be impossible for me to count them. The same was true for the number of fields. Perhaps it is because I used to be a mathematics teacher but when I think about the number of leaves on a tree and realise I can’t count them and combine that with the uncountable trees, I am left in awe. My thinking stops, it’s got nowhere to go. I know it isn’t like this for everyone and it isn’t always like this for me but it was today. I reached a still point just by being in nature. That is significant because when you reach a still point you can’t be unhappy, or sad or depressed or anxious, you are just one with the universe. And when you bring a difficulty together with a still point the difficulty gets resolved.