Completed ten thousands minutes of meditation. Here’s what I discovered.
It’s the thinking mind alone that wants to become bigger, become better or something special in the world. The other part — Our Essence, Our Awareness — has no such desire or ambition. In this fact there is an interesting idea. As we sit and observe the thoughts coming and going, we realise that Awareness is voiceless. It simply witnesses. It observes. It has no goal. It has no desire to change anything; to be something more; to be something better. It simply witnesses life as it unfolds.
As much as we need the thinking mind — the mind that plans and strives — it is typically quite busy. Always occupied. It's trying to change, it's trying to reach for something bigger and better.
Of course there are times in our lives when it is entirely appropriate and even necessary to strive for bigger goals. But very often we confuse it to be the normal state of life. The action cycles for the bigger goals come so often, every cycle longer than the previous one, that the cycle itself becomes life. A cycle that was supposed to catapult to the next stage of life ceases to be helpful.
Rather than being happy with ourselves, we are so busy trying to be somebody different that we can't even experience the sense of contentment in this very moment that is unfolding right now. So, learning to rest in Awareness, we rely less on that thinking mind that's always reaching for something else, and instead we start to appreciate the value of resting in Awareness.
The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the most intense activity, and in the midst of the most intense activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.
(Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 6 Verse 32)
