QUIETENING THE THOUGHT–TORTURED MIND

[Guest guest]

QUIETENING THE THOUGHT–TORTURED MIND

 

It has been estimated that the average person has sixty thousand

separate thoughts each and every day. Our minds are filled with the

same chatter day in and day out. Learning to be quiet and meditate

involves figuring out a way to enter the spaces between our thoughts;

or the gap, as it is called. In this silent empty space between our

thoughts, we can find a sense of total peace in a realm that is

ordinarily unknowable. Here, any illusion of our separateness is

shattered. However, if we have sixty thousand separate thoughts a

day, there is literally no time available to enter the space between

our thoughts, because there is no space!

 

Most of us have the mind that races full-speed day and night. Our

thoughts are a hodgepodge of continuous dialogue about schedules,

money worries, sexual fantasies, grocery lists, drapery problems,

concern about the children, vacation plans, and so on and on like a

merry-go-round that never stops. Those sixty thousand thoughts are

usually about ordinary daily activities and create a mental pattern

that leaves no space for silence.

 

This pattern reinforces our cultural belief that all gaps in

conversation need to be filled quickly. Silent periods in a car or at

a dinner are perceived as awkward moments, and good

conversationalists know how to get those spaces occupied with some

kind of noise.

 

The mind is like a pond. On the surface we see all the disturbances,

yet the surface is only a fraction of the pond. It is in the depth

below the surface, where there is stillness that we will come to know

the true essence of the pond, as well as of our own mind. By going

below the surface, we come to the spaces between our thoughts where

we are able to enter the gap. The gap is total emptiness or silence,

and it is indivisible. No matter how many times we cut silence in the

half, we still get silence. This is what is meant by now. Perhaps it

is the essence of God, that which cannot be divided from the oneness.

It is space between the notes that makes the music. Without that

emptiness, that silence in between, there is no music, only a noise.

We are silent empty space at our center, surrounded by form. To break

through that form and discover our very creative nature that is in

the center, we must find the time to become silent each day, and

enter that rapturous space between our thoughts. Two practical

suggestions to achieve silence are:

 

1.Turn inward to the silent self, by noticing the breath in and out.

We can do this in the middle of meetings, conversations, even

parties. Just notice and follow the breath for a few moments, many

times during the day.

 

2. Simply sit in a room alone and observe the mind, keeping track of

the various thoughts that enter, exit, and lead to the next thought.

Our awareness of the frenetic activity of our mind will help us to

transcend the frenzied pace of thoughts.(Source: Wisdom of the Ages

by Wayne Dyer)

 

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.