Quiet the Mind (Part 2)
I appreciate the enthusiastic response that I received to Part 1 of this series on quieting the mind. This is obviously a topic that is of great interest to many of our subscribers. As life becomes more and more complex, or should I say BUSY, many of us are looking for ways to experience more peace, and to release the negative thoughts that hound us all too often.
Quieting the mind is not a controversial principle. In fact, I don’t know of any religion or spiritual tradition that does not emphasize the importance of a quiet mind. This Bible verse says it beautifully:
“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10)
When every religion agrees on something, I take notice. So, when all of them either quote this Scripture (or re-word it in a way that conveys the same meaning), I feel that there is something worth investigating.
What does this Bible verse mean to you? How often do you consider it?
This verse tells us to be STILL. And we are told that in this stillness, we will know God. That’s a strong statement. Thus, we have good reason to focus on being still or quiet.
We’ve all experienced the benefits of a quiet mind, yet we often overlook them. Let’s examine some of these benefits.
Notice how you FEEL when you quiet the mind, when your thinking subsides. It’s relaxing, and at times even exhilarating. For instance, you watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset. You look into a young child’s innocent face. At these times, you feel serenity and joy. It feels good not to think! You’re in the present moment, and no thinking is necessary. You’re just BEING. There is a lightness to it.
When that child starts crying loudly or spills a drink on your clean pants, you may quickly lose your serenity. You start to THINK about how your pants look or how you will be embarrassed when you have to meet someone later that day. You may also think about how the parents should have watched the child more closely to prevent the drink from being spilled on you. You’ve lost the stillness. The mind is running wild again.
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
We also tend to believe, incorrectly, that intense thinking is the best way to solve our problems. How does our mind work when we bombard it with thoughts? Are we at maximum effectiveness in that state? Most people aren’t.
When we tax our brain dwelling on a problem, we often get frustrated and we may even get a headache or feel tension throughout the body. Here again, our body is giving a message. Stop thinking! Be still.
When we give up thinking about the problem and go to bed, what often happens? The following morning, the “right” answer to the problem just pops into our mind. When we are still and relaxed, the mind is very efficient in guiding us. Over the centuries, inventors frequently reported having made their breakthroughs and discoveries when they “let go” of the problem and stopped thinking. The relaxed mind then yielded the answer.
A busy, overactive mind causes more harm than we can even imagine. For those who say that the key is to develop positive thoughts, feel free to follow that approach if it works for you. I found that it doesn’t work for most people. You are keeping the mind active when you try to force positive thoughts into the mind to “defeat” the negative thoughts. And an active mind is going to come back to haunt you, sooner or later. Negative thoughts, fears and anxieties are going to creep in.
The active mind will not connect with God and spirit. Let’s not forget these important words: Be still, and know that I am God.
How do we develop a quiet mind? That’s what everyone wants to know, and I will begin discussing specific techniques in the next message of this series. Many people wanted to know if meditation is required to quiet the mind. I’ll address that now.
Meditation is a wonderful discipline and is of help in quieting the mind. However, meditation has its limitations. Some meditation methods require training; thus, you have to spend time and money to learn them.
Furthermore, the vast majority of people are not disciplined enough to meditate every day. They may meditate for a few weeks or even months, but they don’t stick with it. We could spend hours discussing the benefits of meditating. The bottom line is that most people won’t do it.
There’s another issue regarding meditation. Some people who meditate demonstrate a quiet, peaceful mind throughout the day. However, there are those who can be at perfect peace during the meditation with their eyes closed — but they are not able to maintain that same quiet mind when they have their eyes open and go about their activities during the day.
Next time, I will be offering some techniques to quiet the mind that you can implement immediately without any specific training. The methods themselves are rather simple. As you might expect, simple does not mean easy! Yes, you will need to be disciplined to stick with them. But let’s not worry about that right now.
Just be still.
– Jeff Keller
© 2008