February 26-B, 2026

We know things we don’t know how we know. If we sit quietly without thinking but being aware of the things that come to mind “out of nowhere” and following the things that have an attraction about them, we will come into realization “like a bolt from the blue.” And we will not have thought it up. We will simply have realized that it is so.

You could start with this photograph, and just sit quietly, emptying your mind of all thoughts, emotions, desires, wants, etc., and just be open to and aware of whatever associations this picture brings to mind. Don’t start thinking about them, just be aware of them and follow the associations that you find to be interesting, just going where they take you, like you might look out a window, seeing but not thinking about what you are seeing, just being drawn along by your associations to the point of realization, awareness, knowing, as though you are making a connection between the photograph, the associations and some truth you never saw coming in a “this means that” kind of way that was not something you might normally think about.

This process of drifting along with associations is one means of self-induced trance states. There are as many ways of inducing trance states as there are people. Looking out the window being one of my faves. And in the trance state, we are assessable to our intuition which is a word for our unconscious seeking an audience with us, trying to commune with us and open us to aspects of our life that we might never be aware of just by thinking.

I have mentioned here before of currently dealing with cognitive dissonance, muddled thinking, not being able to remember something I should know quite well, like what I am doing in the kitchen standing before the refrigerator, or opening a cabinet door. If I try to think in that situation, I only frustrate myself. But, if I open myself to the moment and simply wait for my unconscious to bring an association or a memory to mind it works better than a thought and, like that, I know what I’m doing there. My thinking mind is garbled, but my trance state openness to being here, now works just fine.

I recommend taking up the practice of tuning out of the here, now by opening up to the here, now, not by thinking, but by drifting off into “just being” and seeing what comes to mind by way of associations, or “wool gathering” or just watching whatever images or memories may arise and going along with them wherever they go, waiting for realization, for knowing, to come out of nowhere “just like that.”