With Praxis, there is a technique called Holding, used on some occasions as an aide to Constancy. This involves focusing on a question that you "hold" in your mind. With Holding, you try to be aware of the act of holding the question, not on the answers that arrive. It is important not confuse this technique with any attempt to stop thinking. As in any other form of Constancy, you watch what your mind is doing. In this case, you hold a question, and just watch what happens. Focusing on the act of thinking and not solely on its product is bit like feeling a coin inside your closed fist without looking at it.

When you hold something in your hand, you can feel it between your fingers and your palm. If you hold a coin in your fist, you can feel the cool metal, feel which side is heads and which tails, perhaps feel the rough edges. If I asked you to do this now, you would be able to describe what the coin feels like in your hand. If I ask you to hold something in your mind, would you be able to tell me what that feels like? If I asked you to think of someone, you would be able to describe who they were, what they looked like and you would be able to tell me what feelings you were experiencing whilst thinking of them - whether you liked them or not. Could you tell me what the act of thinking felt like? The equivalent of feeling the coin in your hand? Even though the thinking mind is not set up to do this, Holding can bring a useful distancing to Praxis. The following exercise will hopefully help establish this. . . .

You will need to print out the list below but try not to read any of the questions yet.

Sit as you would for Stillness practice, close your eyes and do a check on how you are; any big feelings around? Are you physically ok? Just do a quick check on your general state.

Open you eyes and then slowly read the questions. Try not to answer them but if you notice your mind making answers, just watch that activity.

Here are the questions . . . . .

1. Do you have a soul?

2. How do you know?

3. What is it?

4. Where is it?

5. How big (or small) is it?

6. What does it do?

7. If you don't know whether you have a soul or not, would you like one?

8. If you feel you have one, does it stay the same, or does it grow and change?

9. Can you change or affect it? Would you want to?

10. Are you and your soul the same thing?

11. Does your soul go on 'somewhere' when you die?

12. Did your soul enter you before birth?

13. Can you see other people's souls?

14. If you cannot, would you want to?

15. Was your soul created?

16. Is the soul a comforting illusion created by the brain, or an expression of some hidden dimension temporarily living in the body?

17. How important is your soul?

18. Have you got one soul, or more than one?

 

---------------> now, look carefully at what you are feeling

 

---------------> concentrate on what you are feeling,

not what you are thinking

 

Read the questions again slowly, this time "Hold" each one for a slow count of five. Remember, to hold the question is to silently ask it of yourself but try not to answer, or, just watch any answer that just arrives.

For a third time, read each question slowly, hold each one for a slow count of ten.

If the exercise works, you will notice a full range of mental activity. You are likely to detect feelings of unease emerging sooner or later. Many give up at this stage; try and persevere. The exercise, which only works if you do it three or four times, will help with the technique of Holding.

To practice Holding you will be need to able to "hold" a question and not feel compulsively attached to whatever answers your mind creates for you. When this distancing starts to occur, deeper feelings start to come out; deeper feelings that might seem to have nothing to do with your question. Just watch them. They bring their own agenda. They will move you on.

This technique of holding is useful in some specific circumstances, mostly where your practice of Constancy has led you to be stuck. You might hold a question like, "why am I unhappy?" You just say the question silently to yourself, about once every twenty seconds. If feelings come up, just watch them. Watch your thinking, watch yourself develop ideas to answer the question, watch yourself have fantasies and reveries. If you forget to ask yourself the question, just re-focus, start the process again, do not indulge in recriminations.