The mind keeps us engaged with its incessant chatter. Its purpose is obvious. It must keep up a constant chattering to hold us captive in our own unique, designed-just-for-us-fear-based story. To allow any space in that mental run-on would be to risk the danger of our discovering that we are not the stressful, limiting, and exceedingly unhappy story that the victim mind uses to define us. And the mind is good at holding us captive to that story!
Just try – right now – to stop your inner harangue. Tell your mind to be quiet! And notice what happens. Does it obey your command? Or does it carry you away so quickly that it's minutes, if not days, before you even realize you've been abducted by the mind yet again?
The key is to quieten the mind with its' relentless story-telling so that the Essence of who we REALLY are can surface. As soon as the mental chatter stops, who we Truly are lies revealed to show us the beauty and peace of Reality.
But HOW do we get the mind to be quiet?
We have learned that we cannot force the mind to be quiet, (what with the right of free speech and all ;)) but what we can do is “witness it into silence.” In other words, we can stand apart from it, observe its banter, and refuse to respond. We simply watch, and as does all conversation when left untended for lack of interest, the mind eventually runs out of fuel, sputters a time or two, and finally goes silent – not for long, mind you, but long enough!
Observing the mind for what it is, and refusing to engage with it, allows us to hear the Inner Voice and therein is found the doorway to freedom.
In the silence of Reality, located in this right now moment, we are fully engaged in seeing, listening, tasting, touching, and fully participating in what we are doing NOW. We have been relocated into what's REAL; we are transported from a less-than-satisfying-story about who we are and what the world is doing to us directly to the only place that really exists – NOW.
We can stand apart from our verbose friend, the mind, and watch it chatter away like a nervous child, and then simply give it something better to do – like for instance, we can suggest that it count our breaths, or ask it to pay full attention to the colors, sounds, and energy surrounding us NOW.
But as soon as we think about any of those experiences – of what we are seeing, hearing, tasting, touching …etc. … as soon as we create a story in our mind about what those things mean, judge them, or complain in our minds about how they should be different, or as soon as we think about something else, or some place else altogether, we remove ourselves from the present Reality, and in so doing, we exchange NOW for a story about it.
Once the mind is engaged in NOW, Reality automatically finds and restores us. We do not aim to silence the mind forever, just more and more often. 🙂
I hope this is helpful.
Blessings,
Lynne