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Creating Peace In The Mind
Between one thought with a certain form and sound and the next thought, there is no given thought. There is only an interval with no form or shape. This is what we call peace or silence. Because this silence has no particular thought form, there is no thinking as we know it. We always think that peace is something we have to acquire. People even ask for it: "Swamiji How can I gain this peace?" Because the mind is restless, we think that peace is something new that we have to acquire, an attribute with which we have to emblish the mind. Is peace something we have to acquire or is it natural? I once went to swami, Yogi Ramayya, who was originally a yogi and then became a disciple of Ramana Maharshi. I could sense that he was a person who was at peace with himself. I had committed myself to vedanta but, at the same time, I had a lot of conflicts in my pursuit. I went to this swami in an attempt to resolve them. He never talked much, but he said one thing to me that really hit home: "For restlessness, you have to work a lot. For peace, what is there to do?" Having asked this question, he became silent, which I found to be very effective. RESTLESSNESS REQUIRES A BUILDUP For peace, what do you have to do? For restlessness, you have to work; you have to create a buildup because, without one, you can never become restless. The problem is that this buildup is not something that we do consciously. It gets built up, like a wall erecting itself. Suppose you have a pile of bricks and they just assemble themselves into a wall. You would consider it a miracle, but you do not consider a buildup of thoughts a miracle because it is always happening. It is a miracle, however, because it just happens. That it just builds itself up and you have no say over it is truly amazing. There is a helplessness in the whole process. Something triggers off a buildup; it may be a simple hormonal change, indigestion, someone's look, a frown, a change of weather, or any number of other things. Any one thing is good enough - you may be combing your hair and a few hairs come out! Any event that you do not accept starts it off and then your mind is busy for the entire day. Restlessness requires a buildup to which I, myself, am not a party. And yet the buildup is mine. I do not look upon it as different from myself. I see myself fuming and do not know what to do. I have to do something about it because, although I am not a party to it, I am completely involved in it. Why is that I cannot keep track of this thought-by-thought buildup? This is because the whole habit of thinking has been "noodle thinking", associative or nondirectional thinking. It is not "peanut thinking" where, as in eating peanuts, you take one peanut, then another peanut, and then another. It is all “noodle thinking” and, in fact, is the most common type of thinking. |
“For restlessness, you have to work a lot. For peace, what is there to do?” |
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