Silensing the mind

[Mamata dash]

To realise some thing deep , to meditate intensely, we have to be silent. But when we want to be silent immediately thoughts come in. So many thought, uncontrollable.. hideous. horrible -float and capturer us and they are stubborn to go away from us. There seems to be no logic for their coming in ,still it goes on and on.
Have any body in our group found some personal method to silence the mind? Have any body the capacity to control the mind as soon as one sits in the meditation?Tell me then

[Pramod Kumar Das]

Hello Mamata mam,
I can feel your state of mind.I was also trying hard to meditate, to shift my attention to some point but there was always a lot of mental noise.I think we pick up the noise as part of our daily lives. But at one point I came to know that FEELINGS are our truest guides to higher level of consciousness . So I made an effort to FEEL more and more deeply.

I stopped trying hard and visualized the universe full of divine love and compassion and I FELT the love and compassion out in the universe. I made a deliberate effort to feel more passionately.the free flowing energies of love and compassion and this ultimately lead to higher levels of consciousness. I still have a long way to go but now at least I can FEEL that I am on the right track.

[Debabrata Ghosh]

TOWARDS SILENCING THE MIND
Sri Aurobindo stressed on a silent mind and a desire less vital to begin with for the sadhakas of integral yoga. Ordinary people wonder at this proposition as they mix up mind with thoughts. Sri Aurobindo on several occasions discussed the matter with his devotees and wrote to them also elaborately. One sincere reader of Sri Aurobindo comes to this subject very often while reading him. Sri Aurobindo’s own sadhana under the guidance of his the then mentor Lele, began with the experience of attaining a completely silent mind.
Ordinarily we are accustomed to conceive our thoughts as our mind. We can not separate mind as a separate element from us. It is because mind is the chief and controlling indriya (sense). All the other senses can not offer their awareness without the help of mind-the indriyadhipati. But the mind is not thoughts. Thoughts come to us from outside and take forms in us according to our nature and propensities. One must make an effort first to stop thoughts coming to his mind in order to achieve a silent mind. Once Sri Aurobindo wrote to a devotee that “... thoughts come from Universal Mind or universal Nature, sometimes formed and distinct, sometimes unformed and then they are given shape somewhere in us. The principal business of our mind is either a response of acceptance or a refusal to these thought- waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought stuff (or vital movements) from the environing Nature-Force.” Now let us see how Sri Aurobindo described his experience under his mentor Lele. Sri Aurobindo once wrote about it to one of his disciple. Lele asked him “Sit in meditation but do not think, look only at your mind; you will see thoughts coming into it; before they can throw these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence.”
Sri Aurobindo wrote “...I simply sat down and did it. In a moment my mind became silent as a windless air on a high mountain summit and then I saw one thought and then another coming in a concrete way from outside; I flung them away before they could enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free.”
One may say (as many of his devotees said) that it is not so easy a thing for the ordinary persons to achieve this as Sri Aurobindo achieved in three days. Sri Aurobindo was not an ordinary person. He was an avatar of Supramental consciousness and it was possible for him to achieve it in that way. One may also raise a point at the very first that it is impossible to understand what Lele advised him by saying “...look only at your mind....” To us –the ordinary persons, it is not intelligible at all to conceive how one can look at his mind; it is like looking at one’s own face without the help of a mirror. Actually the problem lies in identifying our mind with our thoughts. We are so habituated or accustomed to it that we –even the greatest of great thinkers of this world can not believe that thoughts are not mind’s own substance. Only when one enters the path of yoga –one begins to know it. Sri Aurobindo insisted that it is possible for all to attain this preliminary state provided one is sincere. However he also told that there can be many ways to get rid of the onrush of thoughts. But according to him the method as practised by Vivekananda was very difficult but very effective way to achieve it. It is to watch the thoughts themselves from a position of an onlooker or bystander. In this matter we should be cleared of a wrong conception. It is not that mind can be made silent if we are able to get rid of the aggression of thoughts from universal nature. Silence is not a state of absence of thoughts etc. Silence itself is a consciousness like peace, love, delight etc that descend from above or come up from within. But to make its passage clear we must clear the mind completely. In Sri Aurobindo’s own example –the cup must be empty before filling it with divine liquor.
Nothing can be achieved without sincere efforts in a disciplined way. The paths of all yoga are difficult as it’s going against the flow of nature we live in ordinarily. It is again not possible to achieve a silent mind if the vital is not calm and desire less. So we have to take up the matter in an integral way.
For this the pre-requisite is the orientation of the being (the central) towards the Divine. One should strive to make it intense and stable. Without this preliminary stability nothing can be achieved permanently. The power of mind to concentrate is essential. But it can also be achieved through bhakti. If we are able to live in our bhakti in the heart we are automatically prevented from being dissipated through our thoughts. It is the easiest way to proceed towards thoughtlessness. Sri Nalini Kanta Gupta once advised us to practise to remain in feeling rather that to remain in our thoughts. This remaining in feeling i.e. living in the highest feeling a person is known to have –which inspires or enlightens him/her is helpful to avoid mental activity. It may be a vastness, a sense of purity, a feeling of sacredness etc. Along with it, so far as it is possible, one may fix a certain time to concentrate with what suits him or her. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother advised us to concentrate in the heart centre. It’s not exactly the centre of the physical heart but we should not ponder over it. If we go on practising in this way we will be gradually near the very fulcrum of our existence-deep within the whole being-where “A being no bigger than the thumb of a man/
Into a hidden region of the heart.../
Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds/
To make this earthly tenement her house.”/
To live in higher feeling constantly-is another way to live constantly in the state akin to our psychic being spontaneously. Personally I think it’s the easiest way. There are other helps also. One should read Sri Aurobindo before retiring to sleep in the night. The writings of Sri Aurobindo carry his consciousness. Once his mind touches our mind- it is something that fills us with a feeling of divinity-and we will not be inclined to think.
Finally one must not involve oneself in intellectual activities. Sri Aurobindo also advised us in the following words:
“The turmoil of mental (intellectual) activity has also to be silenced like the vital activity of desire in order that the calm and peace may be complete. Knowledge has to come but from above. In this calm the ordinary mental activities like the ordinary vital activities become surface movements with which the silent inner self is not connected. It is the liberation necessary in order that the true knowledge and the true life activity may replace or transform the activities of the Ignorance.”
All this is for those who have not yet possessed a completely silent mind and a desire less vital. Intellectual activities are allowed to the sadhak only when the intellect is transformed to the higher mind or surrendered to the Mother. The path of sadhana is very difficult and we Indians know it as difficult as to walk on the edge of a sharp blade. It is impossible to achieve something as piecemeal like attaining the silent mind while living an ordinary life. Before concluding I like to quote some lines of Sri Aurobindo again.
“It is the ordinary unenlightened activity of the intellect that is an obstacle to spiritual experience, just as the ordinary unregenerated activity of the vital or the obscure stupidly obstructive consciousness of the body is an obstacle. What the sadhak has to be specially warned against in the wrong process of the intellect is, first, any mistaking of mental ideas and impressions or intellectual conclusions for realisation; secondly, the restless activity of the mere mind which disturbs the spontaneous accuracy of psychic and spiritual experience and gives no room for the descent of the true illuminating knowledge or else deforms it as soon as it touches or even before it fully touches the human mental plane.” And for accuracy and knowledge through intellectual exercise, he said in another place “...there is nothing mind can do, that can not be done in the mind’s immobility and thought- free stillness.”
In the ultimate analysis –after having done all that we are able to do the matter rests on Divine Grace and also with our strongly believing it.

[Donna Osborn]

Dear Mamata, ...this is what i have practiced in the past for silencing the mind...i prepare a small, inch size black dot and in a softly lit room, i place this dot on the white wall...then i sit in a comfortable position and gaze gently at the spot on the wall for as long as i can without straining the eyes...during this gazing period i concentrate on the rhymthic breathing and the positive thought of
"I WILL BE AN INSTRUMENT OF THE DIVINE"..when the eyes became tired I close them and a light will be visible before the closed eyelids... i will gaze at this internal light as long as it lasts...during this last part of gazing at the light there is a silenced mind...after you do this regularly, at the same time each day you will notice that the mind becomes silenced very quickly... but it is like exercising a muscle and if you stop the exercise the muscle becomes weakened and you have start over again from the beginning. There is a similar yogic exercise called TRATAKA that you do with a candle that works nicely.

[Vaibhav Gupta]

Namaste Mamta mam,
A pratical method given by The Mother is very helpful to me. I am not able to silence my mind completely but it helps me a lot.

Mother said -
"First of all, you must want it.
........You sit quietly, to begain with; and then, insted of thinking of fifty things, you begain saying to yourself, "Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, calm, peace!" You imagine peace and calm. You aspire, ask that it may come: "Peace, peace, calm." And then, when something comes and touches you and acts, say quietly, like this, "Peace, peace, peace." Do not look at the thoughts, do not listen to the thoughts....... you must behave as though they did not exist, you see! And then, repeat all the time like a kind of - how shall I put it? - as an idiot does, who repeats the same thing always. Well, you must do the same thing; you must repeat, "Peace, peace, peace." So you try this for a few minutes and then do what you have to do; and then, another time, you begin again; sit down again and then try. Do this on getting up in the morning, do this in the evening when going to bed. You can do this... look, if you want to digest your food properly, you can do this for a few minutes before eating..... Before begning to eat you sit quietly for a while and say, "Peace, peace, peace!" and everything becomes calm. It seems as though all the noises were going far, far, far away and then you must continue; and there comes a time when you no longer need to sit down, and no matter what you are doing, no matter what you are saying, it is always "Peace, peace, peace." Everything remains here, like this, it does not enter ( gesture in front of the forehead ), it remains like this. And then one is always in a perfect peace... after some years.
...... It is difficult to make an effort while remaining quite. Very simple, very simple, you must be very simple in these things. It is as though you were learning how to call a friend: by dint of being called he comes. Well, make peace and calm your friend and call them: "Come, peace, peace, peace, peace, come!"

This method help me very much to quieten my mind for atleast some time.

[Barindranath Chaki]

In Silence

In Silence alone, there is progress, the spiritual progress, or rather an integral progress. Integral silence is the source of true force and concentration and attention. We need, for a true growth in an integral spirituality, as much silence as possible— not only mental, but also vital and physical silence. Silence in the mind, silence in the vital being — the plane of all emotions and passions and feelings, even higher and subtle feelings — and in the physical, in the body and in the entire outer circumstances: this is what we need for a true progress.

The first step of the Integral Transformation is the Psychic Transformation. For the psychic transformation or the psychic change, we must realize and unveil the psychic being. And in order to unveil the Psychic Being, the true and central being in us, we shall have to go within: to the inner cave. That is the most essential journey we shall have to undertake. In order to go within and discover the psychic being, a regular aspiring practice of Meditation and an utmost concentration in our works, which should always be consecrated to the Divine, to the Divine Mother.

The Mother said to Huta :

The best way to hasten this change is the habit of going within.

Thus, we shall have to go within — the surest and the most practical way to find and bring out the Divine from within. After the inner discovery, we shall have to change our entire being, in all its parts. Without going within, nothing can be done.

In Meditation and in the consecration of the works, the greatest necessity is Silence — external silence, mental silence and vital silence. The Mother has advised us to control our speech always and to keep our surroundings as much silent and undisturbed as possible. This has to grow as a conscious habit in us.

Then what is required is a vital silence: there ought to be a conquest over all the tumults and waves. We have bring a gradual silence over the vital being’s “desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy” and hostility, so that we may develop “a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being”. [Quotations are from The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.]

Such a vital being is to be obtained in order to have a true mental silence, and this too needs a sincere practice. Let us find what Sri Aurobindo has said in this connection:

In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life's cherished guests are left outside,
Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.
[Savitri, Pt I, Bk 1, Co 4]

In order that our spirit, our psychic finds itself and sits alone and has a communion with the Vast, not only our inner lamps are to be lit, but also our life’s cherished guests, the elements and forces of the vital nature, should be left outside.

Our aspiration must be integral, consisting of all parts of our being. And we must be sincere, in order to achieve a true progress. How to be sincere? The Mother has said to Huta:
To be sincere, all the parts of the being must be united in their aspiration for the Divine, not that one part wants and the others refuse or revolt. [White Roses]

Therefore, if we try to be silent in the mind, but there are disturbances in the atmosphere externally, or in the body or in the vital nature, or even if the mental activities are divided, no silence will come.
When in meditation or contemplation, one has to provide peace and silence in the atmosphere. And then, one has to try to go within, by keeping all the ‘life’s cherished guests’ outside. This needs a preparation from beforehand, which may take some, which may differ from person to person. And then comes the real work of silencing the mind. When we sit a meditation, ideas and images will come. We should let them pass. Let them pass away. We should better try to concentrate with a small mantra, say ‘Ma’ or ‘Mother’. Or even we repeat the word ‘peace, peace’. We may remember The Mother or even both of Them.

And we should see that there is the minimum action —as little as possible — in the mind. We should pray for Silence, peacefully, without any pressure or anxiety or negative thought or emotion. And gradually, Silence comes.

How does Silence come? One thing : be silent, in all parts of your existence. The Mother helps. The Mother comes in Silence, along with Silence.

OOOOO

One has to distinguish between a calm mind and a silent mind. We may be able to pacify and calm our mind and stop its ordinary activities, but in a silent mind, ideas should not enter and disturb. The Mother says that to completely silence the mind is not an easy task. In this connection, The Mother has said :
You should not confuse a calm mind with a silent mind. You can calm your mind and stop its ordinary activity, but it may still be open to ideas coming from outside and that too disturbs the calm. And for the mind to be completely silent, you must not only stop its own activity but shut out all that comes from other minds. This is not easy.

In course of Sadhana and due to the graceful interference from The Mother and The Master, or from the Divine, one may come in active contact with the consciousness beyond normal mind, ranging from the higher mind to the intuition. When the mind so receives any such experience in the silence of the mind, one has to receive it — one should not then stop the higher interference. One should have to know and realize the difference.

The Mother has said:
Moreover, you must learn to distinguish between a phenomenon of consciousness and a mental phenomenon. One can be conscious of an experience in such a way that this consciousness is not formulated into a thought or thoughts. This is very important if the mind is to remain absolutely quiet and silent.

Often, Silence is much more powerful than words. The Descent of Peace, of the Divine Presence, happens in silence, “not by beat of drums”, in the words of The Mother. Very often, the children of The Mother, throughout the world, received Her Blessings in silence — without any written word. I have personally experienced this several times.

Let us find what She says in this regard:
Always I answer your letters but rarely I have time to put my answer on paper. You are capable of receiving these answers directly, but for that you must learn to keep your mind silent − this is the true meditation − the brain blank, immobile and turned upward. This is the necessary condition to receive the answers. If you can hand over the care of your existence and your development to the Supreme Consciousness, then peace will enter your heart and your problems will be solved.

Thus, we may receive The Mother’s response and answers directly in our consciousness, if we have Silence established within us.

Barin Chaki
25-09-2008

[This is also published here in ASPIRATION in my Blog, and also in my Blog Allchoice and in my Blog in Sulekha.]

[kalpana]

Thanks, this is one of the methods I find to be very helpful [alongside other techniques also suggested in the replies.]. The words such as 'peace, calm' are truly like calling or inviting a good friend, as Mother says.

Vaibhav Gupta said:

Namaste Mamta mam,
A pratical method given by The Mother is very helpful to me. I am not able to silence my mind completely but it helps me a lot.

Mother said -
"First of all, you must want it.
........You sit quietly, to begain with; and then, insted of thinking of fifty things, you begain saying to yourself, "Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, calm, peace!" You imagine peace and calm. You aspire, ask that it may come: "Peace, peace, calm." And then, when something comes and touches you and acts, say quietly, like this, "Peace, peace, peace." Do not look at the thoughts, do not listen to the thoughts....... you must behave as though they did not exist, you see! And then, repeat all the time like a kind of - how shall I put it? - as an idiot does, who repeats the same thing always. Well, you must do the same thing; you must repeat, "Peace, peace, peace." So you try this for a few minutes and then do what you have to do; and then, another time, you begin again; sit down again and then try. Do this on getting up in the morning, do this in the evening when going to bed. You can do this... look, if you want to digest your food properly, you can do this for a few minutes before eating..... Before begning to eat you sit quietly for a while and say, "Peace, peace, peace!" and everything becomes calm. It seems as though all the noises were going far, far, far away and then you must continue; and there comes a time when you no longer need to sit down, and no matter what you are doing, no matter what you are saying, it is always "Peace, peace, peace." Everything remains here, like this, it does not enter ( gesture in front of the forehead ), it remains like this. And then one is always in a perfect peace... after some years.
...... It is difficult to make an effort while remaining quite. Very simple, very simple, you must be very simple in these things. It is as though you were learning how to call a friend: by dint of being called he comes. Well, make peace and calm your friend and call them: "Come, peace, peace, peace, peace, come!"

This method help me very much to quieten my mind for atleast some time.

[Jennifer Surdam]

For me, I let the thoughts come, then I imagine them floating away on a cloud. When I work on meditating, I usually do some sort of imagery with it, so I'll use imagery with where I'm going to let the thoughts go away. I find that if I try to empty my mind fully, it doesn't work, so using that sort of guided imagery makes me concentrate on the meditation itself much better, and I can get to where I'm going, calm my mind better, and be more fully "in the moment" of the meditation better. If you haven't done a guided meditation, it might help to do that, or to use a meditation CD with just music. It does help to settle the mind, at least for me.

Hope that helps a tad bit.
Hugs and BB,
jen :)

[Mamata dash]

Dear jennifer
I attempt any methods. But imagery? i have tried but not seriously. i feel impatient an think it also wont do. I have nt taken any guided meditation technique. Which one helped you? Eaxactly how you do meditation for how many minutes?
What happnes at the end? Mamata with love
Jennifer Surdam said:

For me, I let the thoughts come, then I imagine them floating away on a cloud. When I work on meditating, I usually do some sort of imagery with it, so I'll use imagery with where I'm going to let the thoughts go away. I find that if I try to empty my mind fully, it doesn't work, so using that sort of guided imagery makes me concentrate on the meditation itself much better, and I can get to where I'm going, calm my mind better, and be more fully "in the moment" of the meditation better. If you haven't done a guided meditation, it might help to do that, or to use a meditation CD with just music. It does help to settle the mind, at least for me.

Hope that helps a tad bit.
Hugs and BB,
jen :)

[kalpana]

Yes the use of imagery, as Jennifer says, can be very helpful to lead the mind towards a meditative state.
The Mother on many occasions [I can get some quotes if needed] has talked about the positive effects of identifying with images such as open space, the skies - anything that helps to open the consciousness.
In traditional yoga practices, such as Classical Yoga of Patanjali, several objects are offered, to help the mind concentrate for meditation.
I agree with Jennifer, that meditation definitely helps to calm the mind, and therefore has quite a positive effect as well on one's health.
Of course, in terms of creativity and writing, we learn from Sri Aurobindo's own experiences [and indeed many creative people] that a meditative mind state opens up access to planes of inspiration.
As an aspiring writer, do you find this happens?

Jennifer Surdam said:

For me, I let the thoughts come, then I imagine them floating away on a cloud. When I work on meditating, I usually do some sort of imagery with it, so I'll use imagery with where I'm going to let the thoughts go away. I find that if I try to empty my mind fully, it doesn't work, so using that sort of guided imagery makes me concentrate on the meditation itself much better, and I can get to where I'm going, calm my mind better, and be more fully "in the moment" of the meditation better. If you haven't done a guided meditation, it might help to do that, or to use a meditation CD with just music. It does help to settle the mind, at least for me.

Hope that helps a tad bit.
Hugs and BB,
jen :)

[Jennifer Surdam]

Mamata,

My visualizations are very different each time, and I go into them differently, depending on what I need to accomplish each time, so it's hard for me to tell you exactly what I do, nor to tell you exactly how long. I can tell you that I might start one time on a beach, and I'll talk everything in with all my senses, what it looks, smells, feels, sounds, and even tastes like (the spray from the water, for instance), and I let everything sort of fill in the blanks, and when stray thoughts try to come in, I'll let them float away on a cloud. The beach is a great visualization, because you can imagine walking down it, and use that as a form of whatever you need to do. If you need to cleanse yourself, you can take a dip in the ocean. If you need to do a relaxation, you can find a place to lay a beach towel and relax all your muscles while hearing the roar of the ocean gently recede.

There are sooooo many things that a beach visualization will do for you, and any clouds in the sky will serve to carry away stray thoughts. That's my experience, tho. I don't EVER time my sessions, though, because I use them to accomplish a goal--and once it's accomplished, I'm done. If I'm using a watch or a timer, I'm THINKING about when I need to get done--and that pulls in stray thoughts or adds unnecessary stress. To start, I'd say, I generally look at about 15 minutes, roughly, cuz I don't want to suggest too much time, but it's essentially to just get the feel of it, and how you know is just to sorta get going. You can just do a short walk on the beach to get going, and not really do much, just so you can get that feel for it and see if it works for you. You'll probably find that as you get into it, take a short walk, and then get back out of it, that'll probably be close to 15-20 minutes, would be my guess. That's probably pretty close... I hope that helped, and if not, please let me know, I'll be glad to clarify anything you need.

Kaplana,

Yes, I think so! I do have chronic illness, so it does depend upon my reason for doing a meditation, but for the most part, I do find that doing a meditation prior to writing really does open my mind up to some incredible creativity. And honestly, even when I'm not doing it prior to writing, it can still really give me some great insight into where something I'm working on can go!

Hugs to you both!
jen :)

[Mamata dash]

Dear jennifer
I will try that . To night I shall try. BUt tell me after the stray thoughts go away and there is no thought.. only the visualised sky what happenes then? What kind of experience come after that? Just relaxation or more more than that. We must meditate to now our inner being to realise something eeper no? Would this visualisation give is that?
After I try I shall tell you. thanks a lot.Mamata

Jennifer Surdam said:

Mamata,

My visualizations are very different each time, and I go into them differently, depending on what I need to accomplish each time, so it's hard for me to tell you exactly what I do, nor to tell you exactly how long. I can tell you that I might start one time on a beach, and I'll talk everything in with all my senses, what it looks, smells, feels, sounds, and even tastes like (the spray from the water, for instance), and I let everything sort of fill in the blanks, and when stray thoughts try to come in, I'll let them float away on a cloud. The beach is a great visualization, because you can imagine walking down it, and use that as a form of whatever you need to do. If you need to cleanse yourself, you can take a dip in the ocean. If you need to do a relaxation, you can find a place to lay a beach towel and relax all your muscles while hearing the roar of the ocean gently recede.

There are sooooo many things that a beach visualization will do for you, and any clouds in the sky will serve to carry away stray thoughts. That's my experience, tho. I don't EVER time my sessions, though, because I use them to accomplish a goal--and once it's accomplished, I'm done. If I'm using a watch or a timer, I'm THINKING about when I need to get done--and that pulls in stray thoughts or adds unnecessary stress. To start, I'd say, I generally look at about 15 minutes, roughly, cuz I don't want to suggest too much time, but it's essentially to just get the feel of it, and how you know is just to sorta get going. You can just do a short walk on the beach to get going, and not really do much, just so you can get that feel for it and see if it works for you. You'll probably find that as you get into it, take a short walk, and then get back out of it, that'll probably be close to 15-20 minutes, would be my guess. That's probably pretty close... I hope that helped, and if not, please let me know, I'll be glad to clarify anything you need.

Kaplana,

Yes, I think so! I do have chronic illness, so it does depend upon my reason for doing a meditation, but for the most part, I do find that doing a meditation prior to writing really does open my mind up to some incredible creativity. And honestly, even when I'm not doing it prior to writing, it can still really give me some great insight into where something I'm working on can go!

Hugs to you both!
jen :)

[kalpana]

''With the silence in the mind, always comes at first what seems to be a loss of memory, but there is nothing to be anxious about - it comes back in due time and the memory is a better one, more correct and more exact. ''- The Mother [p-36, White Roses, Sixth Edition, 1999]

I came across the above statement from the Mother, which I could relate to.
Because the awareness is so used to jumping around with each thought, feeling, sensation, the intervals of silence might seem unnatural to the mind - it starts worrying that it is becoming inert! Actually, I have noticed that far from being inert, the silence has cleared the mind and memory in a useful way- things that need to be done or remembered get done. In a sense, it does de-clutter the mind!