The Inner Voice/Monologue

[Sirius]

That is a good point that it can be a dangerous practice without cultivating a connection to the divine. All the armour of God stuff applies, if you're Christian, for example. A great amount of willpower and concentration is required to calm the "puppy dog chasing its tail" that is the sensory-infatuated mind. Don't let your conscience or empathy go dark, that's what psychopaths do. Consider it instead as being raised to a higher level, moving one's identity from the worldly ego into the virtuous beyond the mortal. With the stilling of the voices, you're not killing them, but healing them with lovingkindness. Think of it like many people talking in a room at once. You can't make out what any one voice is saying, only the general gist and mood of what is being said. The inner narrative, unfocused, gives words to this, and becomes the babbling hypno-toad of the daily rat race that most live as life. With quieting meditation, consciousness, the true observer, is active apart, and the chatter of the mind is stilled and becomes the observed. This allows the individual voices and motivations of the animal mind to be seen, heard, examine, and reconciled. That's the idea any way.

Please enjoy this tasty beverage:

You may consider it beer, ginger ale, saspirella or water as applicable.

Edit: Or seltzer! That's an option too!

Stilling the voice is dying, you become an automaton. Sleeping is called the little death but there you still dream.

This is my problem with focus and being mechanistic and why I much prefer channeling energy where my time isn't lost. Now if I could just stop channeling Dionysus for a day.