Gary Weber: Stopping Thought, Stopping Time

Ramesh Balsekar, Nisargadatta’s translator, and a well-known non-dualist, said “The core of our problem, then, lies in thought, which is the creator of time”. This opens a window into an approach for ending the tyranny of conceptual/mental time. If thought can be modified, slowed, or stopped, then time can be modified, slowed, or stopped. Following many years of yoga and meditation practice, the speaker Gary Weber, a PhD. in the physical sciences and an industrial and academic researcher and manager, had his self-referential thoughts abruptly stop. is state has continued, with few exceptions, for 12 years. Time has similarly largely stopped as an on-going phenomenon on a day-to-day basis. “Chopping wood and carrying water”, and even planning and learning, have continued, but without self-referential thoughts, they occur without a clear sense of their happening “in time”. Drawing upon Zen, Advaita and yoga of different types, diverse experiential and practical approaches to reducing the intensity, type and number of thoughts, as well as potentially stopping them, will be presented. These approaches are derived from the speaker’s book “Happiness Beyond thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening”, and his presentations and articles. Recent developments in cognitive neuroscience and complex systems theory that support, explain and expand these approaches will also be presented and discussed.