"The Secret - enter at your own risk"

(the Shingle hanging outside this little Establishment)

If there is one thing that keeps ALL PEOPLE asleep to the reality that is all around them, it is the fact (not a theory, but an actual fact you can verify) that they can NOT control their "thought-process", and can just barely control -though only within narrow limits - the actual thoughts of which they sometimes become aware. Got that? Humans hear the end-of-a-process - always, the endings, on and on and on - but have no control over the PROCESS producing them.

As goes the PROCESS, so evaporates in words their tiny possibility for complete awakening in this lifetime. Continual babble, inside and outside, for all the world to hear, and shake their heads at, and wag their fingers at... while waiting, waiting, "Ah, there it is!"... for some verbal response to that babble they just became slightly aware of, and which must NOW be expressed!

This little establishment - in business now for over 15 years - has been about ONE THING ONLY: Stop Thought. If you must enter here, leave your thoughts outside. In here, is only silence, and you take on a Vow of Silence upon entering. It is possible to experience something, in the absence of one's continual internal mumbling, that can Grow and become Permanent - which some have labeled "Enlightenment" - characterized by the absence of thought-based-consciousness, revealing Consciousness-without-Thought.

You DO KNOW - yes? - that one can actually be conscious and aware without words; which would be similar to witnessing a horse race while astride the lead horse that has already left the field and taken flight far above the planet. (Whoa, a Winged Horse you say?)

The enduring effort to be more conscious, every moment, every moment - and aware of that which continues to trip you up, and get in your way, day after day - has absolutely NOTHING to do with thoughts about the world that you can Google, or Wiki, so as to impress your so-called "friends"... but as Groucho said, "I wouldn't join any group that would have me as a member." (however, it likely originated with John Galsworthy in 'The Forsyte Saga'; In Part I, Chapter II, 'Old Jolyon Goes to the Opera', it's said of Old Jolyon that, 'He naturally despised the Club that did take him', after another refused him because he was in a trade.)

See, I can do that shit too!