The best way for a beginner to learn is to dive in and get a feel for the groove of easily favoring. All these clarifications can’t replace the deep, deep instincts and intuition that will guide a person in using the mantra skillfully. The clarifications help, but ultimately, every individual person has to learn to trust their own inner navigator and compass. That’s what the-guru-is-in-you strategy is all about…hinting, informing, empowering…but not trying to micromanage someone’s inner journey.
The mind is a magnificent place. There’s more to be discovered here, in stillness and ecstasy.
Hey Blue, we are reasonable gals. It’s confusing if you can’t be lost in thoughts if you are a beginning meditator. 'Cause you can’t freaking always favor the mantra. Christi said, " making no progress" for lost in thought, so I gave him an example.
I see it as vague and in between anything someone else says.
Hi Lalow,
Anyone can become lost in thought during meditation whether they are a beginner or advanced. When you realize that you are lost in thought, you easily favour the mantra again. Anyone can do that. 
If someone is lost in thought and realizes that they are off the mantra and choose to remain lost in thought, even though they could choose to easily favour the mantra, then that is called “thinking” and is not Deep Meditation practice.
So, I was not saying that someone is making no progress if they are lost in thought. I was saying that someone would be making no progress if they are lost in thought, and choose to remain lost in thought, instead of following the meditation procedure.
You can always choose to favour the mantra, whenever you realize that you are off it, except for in rare cases, when the lesson 15 procedure is followed instead.
Christi
Hi Christi,
Yes, of course. You say, " extreme" examples. Well, that’s most of my meditation experience, extreme bliss, silence, now weird R.E.M. Stuff. There’s different flavorings that overpower the mantra.
I didn’t want other weirdos like me thinking their meditation wasn’t making progress. 
We are. We also have enough meditation experience to know what Cody means, but you don’t know who else is reading this topic. Somebody who’s just trying to get their head round the DM instructions, reading that “being absorbed in thoughts is the central part of the technique” could get confused.
Hi Lalow,
Yes, if you are experiencing extreme over-powering sensations in your meditations, and are needing to revert to the procedure in lesson 15, then you are still making progress. What you are dealing with is a lot of purification happening at once, at the same time as the mind is entering the initial stages of samadhi.
It is a stage that does not last forever and at some point you will begin to move beyond it. You will still experience silence and bliss, deeper than before, but will not be overwhelmed by them.
You are still following the guidelines laid down in the lessons, which is the important thing for making progress at the most rapid rate.
Christi 
Once again, in usual AYP Forum way, this discussion is like amrita to my eyes.
Easily favour / Results are shown in daily activity;
Booom! Magical and so powerful phrases. [OM]
Christi, I may be a radical, but I have thought since the beginning that we cannot control our mental focus while doing DM, beyond gently favoring the mantra (returning to it) when we become aware that we are not doing the mantra. It sounds like you are advocating actively terminating thought to direct a return to the mantra, effectively forcing the mantra.
Do I misunderstand?