Quiet the Mind (Part 1)
Most of you are very familiar with the value of a positive attitude and positive thoughts. By understanding and applying these concepts, my life improved dramatically. I’m guessing that positive thoughts have produced beneficial results for you as well.
Here’s how the process works. We have negative thoughts and negative beliefs in some areas of our lives. These negative thoughts affect our physical and emotional health. They affect our relationships with others. They may affect our career and our finances.
So what do we do? If we have learned about self-development principles and the power of our thoughts, we focus our attention on positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts. If we are very negative, it might take some time to shift our dominant thinking to the positive. But if we are dedicated and persist, we can usually make progress and train our mind to think positively much more than we think negatively.
As a result, we begin to see the conditions of our life improving. Some of these changes are extraordinary. We become much happier and more successful.
No matter how much progress we make, however, it seems that the negative thoughts and emotions can’t be entirely wiped out. When we have negative thoughts, we attempt to quickly change them to positive thoughts. Sometimes we can make that shift, and on other occasions, we don’t have as much success in “defeating” the negative thoughts.
What I’ve come to learn is that fighting the negative thoughts by trying to replace them with positive thoughts has its limits. It works much of the time, but there will be instances where, even if you are a very positive person, negative thoughts and negative emotions will pop up and hang around for a while to taunt you. You may not even understand why negativity or fear is arising, as you can’t point to a reason for it.
There’s another way to approach this problem but it goes against what most people believe. What if you just learned to quiet the mind? In other words, you aren’t trying to force positive thoughts into your mind when the negative thoughts arise. Instead, you are training your mind to be quiet.
What happens if the mind is quieted? Most of us have never spent a prolonged period of time in this state, so we can’t know what would happen.
Developing a quiet mind is no simple task, especially if your mind is very active now. But you will be amazed at the results if you are dedicated to calming that constant chattering in your mind.
When you are quiet, you connect with your divine nature. This is the only source of lasting peace. Your true nature doesn’t know negativity. It doesn’t know fear. It doesn’t experience anger. It is your mind that experiences the negativity, the fear, and the anger. This is an invitation to explore what happens when you let go of the mind.
The mind will tell you that your entire world will fall apart without an active mind. This is the mind’s tactic for keeping itself alive and in the forefront. The mind can be very mischievous!
If you are happy with your mind and its current activity, there would be no reason for you to quiet the mind. However, if you are wrestling with occasional negativity or fear – and you are sick and tired of having your mind run you — these messages may help you to find a new approach to dissolve the negative thoughts and emotions.
My own journey has taught me that the mind holds the key to suffering and that spiritual awareness expands as the mind is quieted. As always, I respect your right to think differently.
In upcoming messages in this series, I will be discussing ways in which to quiet the mind and the benefits of doing so. I’d like this series to be interactive. I’ll be able to address some of your questions and concerns as this series unfolds. Feel free to forward any questions or comments to me, as well as your experiences and insights. I will incorporate your comments where appropriate, but nobody’s name or email address will be included. Thus, your privacy will always be maintained.
I don’t claim to know the answers, but we can have an open dialogue. You can send your email to jeff@YourSpiritualJourney.net .
– Jeff Keller
© 2008