People complain about the “voice in their heads.” Often, advanced meditators say they’ve lost it, and their life is better for it. But more recent research shows a large percentage of the population doesn’t have it anyway (a case where natural variance combined with the typical mind fallacy makes things extra confusing).
But you know what? I think this is a massive red herring. As per usual, the problem with X (having a voice in your head in this case) was never X directly, but… you can guess what I’m about to say: the effect X has on valence. Don’t overindex on X. X IS INCIDENTAL. What matters is that X MAKES YOU FEEL BAD.
Rob Burbea distinguishes between discernment and judgement. Discernment tells you what is helpful. Judgement is an evaluation of the self/other, which relies on false metaphysical assumptions to stand on.
The problem with having a voice in your head is that it is a judgmental voice – it creates a self-view. In particular, it causes moral and social judgments on a fabricated sense of “self and other.” Judgment feels bad; it adds weight to experience. Even judging something as good feels subtly bad in the background, because it entails some level of inner tension and segmentation where you represent a part of you as bad to generate the contrast necessary to highlight the good.
Judgment is self-perpetuating. It stings. It costs energy. And it builds on top of itself. When you’re too far gone in a judgment spiral, you judge yourself for being judgmental.
Burbea calls judgment “the thief of happiness” and explains how it strangles creativity: how many poems die in the waste-basket because “I’m useless” barged in? He also reminds us that sometimes simple mindfulness isn’t enough; you have to challenge the habit by feeling its sting in the body and meeting that pain with kindness.
Things like hangovers and bad psychedelic trips are often bad because of the persistent tracer effect on judgment. A panic attack often involves a kind of judgment tinnitus. Without judgment and its symmetry-breaking effects in the field of awareness, a “voice in your head” would not be a problem. Bring it on! I’m OK having a zany, Bugs Bunny-like commentator on my experience, so long as it doesn’t jitter my attention without consent or cast judgment on my everyday activities or social cognition. It could very well be amusing: might as well have an entire cast of whacky characters putting on a schizophrenic show for me to enjoy. The problem is not the voices, but the bitterness and disenchantment they entail.
Rob, in his lecture on letting go of judgment, explains that not judging is a real, achievable way of life. Freedom from judgment is within grasp for all of us (assuming we put in the time and effort – though please don’t take this as a judgment on your temporal thriftiness or laziness!). Burbea affirms it’s “absolutely possible” for the habit of judgment to end – sometimes large chunks of the “mountain of judgment” crumble suddenly in a matter of weeks. Even when judgment thoughts continue to arise from habit, they arise “completely free of any charge… just like empty words” with no power behind them. Eventually, these empty judgments fade away because they’ve been “sucked dry” of meaning.
This effort, I believe, is far more targeted and beneficial for liberation than the poor proxy of “removing the voice in your head, which already ~50% (?) of people don’t have anyway.” Freedom from judgment and its associated sense of presence, direct experience, thinning of self, and homeostatic regulation is the real prize. Not mental silence.