September 6, 2009: How to reduce your thoughts in meditation (Meditation teleclass)
So you sit down to quiet your mind and meditate, and a thought of a pink elephant enters your thoughts. You like the pink elephant with cute tusks dancing a slow waltz in the ballroom of your mind... But your mind is not quiet and you want it to be quiet, which irritates you and makes you order your mind to be still and not think of the pink elephant. Ordering an untrained mind around is like forcing jelly not to squiggle -- it does not work. So, you hate the pink elephant, the waltz, meditating... and begin to dislike yourself -- for these are your thoughts... What to do, what to do?
Why is the mind restless? It's the mind's nature to be restless until we train it. And we do not pay much attention to training the mind. But these are shallow reasons. The real reason is that our mind is an expression of our personal flow which interacts with the external flow. The mind initially does not understand that this friction has a deeper purpose. This is how we grow and evolve. This is how the Universe grows and evolves through us. But the mind -- particularly the mind identified with itself -- feels threatened by the change, internal or external. Hence, the real reason for restlessness is the built-in conflict between the insistence on self-importance and the fear of annihilation. (All philosophies that preach an eternal continuation cater to soothe this conflict between the impossible and the inevitable -- they strive to protect this self-importance in the face of sure death.) But there is a part of us that does not die. Identify with That and we are immortal, a state known as self-realization. We will be kinder to ourselves if we understand that we are in the process of growing toward self-realization.
In the process of evolving the untrained mind into a self-realized being there are many things we can do to improve the situation, to reduce our thoughts.
Let's start with the big one -- with love. This restless mind is your mind. It is restless because it schemes constantly to protect itself. This mind is you. Do you love your mind? Are you kind to your thoughts, emotions, memories? Do you accept your strengths and weaknesses? Being at peace with your mind is a big step toward being at peace.
Listening and dancing to music, participating in spiritual chanting and dancing, or chanting mantras and dancing when alone (doing kirtan) engages your body, mind and emotions -- and has a great calming effect on the restless mind. This may be weird for some people but is very effective. And it is a lot less weird than taking medication.
Reduce useless stimuli. Turn off, walk away from any source of irrelevant, useless, or irritating information -- be it a person, a situation or whatever. Do you really need to have that TV on all the time? Do you really need a TV set or a radio at all? Read the news on the Web. It takes me 5 minutes a day to stay well-informed. Do you really need to participate in or hear your office gossip? Do you need to know what Leo or Christina had for breakfast yesterday? Focus only on what you need to know and the rest of your mind will begin to fill with peace.
Seek people and settings that evoke the best in you. Associate with evolved people, socialize with fellow meditators, spiritual seekers, and good people. They say finding a congenial company of truth-seekers is half the journey. Try regular walks alone in a quiet forest among lush trees, sit on a deserted beach listening to the waves come and go while the sand seeps into your pants and your being...
Allow and your desires will be fulfilled. Thoughts create reality. But most people with untrained minds are bad transmitters of their wishes to the Universe. They run too much internal interference to allow a sustained creation. The less thoughts we have the greater the thoughts that we do have create better reality for us! The more space we have between our thoughts the more we allow the Universe to bring us what we truly desire. And this is the true reason why advanced meditators are so happy and fulfilled...
Copyright (c) Dr. Anatole Ruslanov
