A Million Thoughts: Learn All About Meditation from a Himalayan Mystic

Mindfulness is the first step in putting a lid on mental conversations. Each time you find yourself holding a mental conversation, just be mindful. Ask yourself the golden question, “What am I doing right now?” A certain awareness will arise. Don’t try to stop a mental conversation by instructing yourself to stop it or by curbing it. Instead, stop it either by ignoring it or by shifting your attention.

Subtle Conversations

When you are neither talking to someone nor holding a self- communion, in great likelihood, you are holding a subtle conversation. Since the mind is unsettled and restless, you want to keep it engaged, almost involuntarily, just like the hyper and naughty kid the parents want to keep busy. Are you wondering what subtle conversations are? When you are not talking to anyone or to yourself but you are watching others converse, you are holding a subtle conversation.

Watching TV or listening to radio are examples of subtle conversations. Stereotypically, without prejudice and justification, men do not hold the first two types of conversations as much as women, therefore, they often compensate by engaging more in the third one. You will find men glued to TV more than women and more frequently at that. The more restless the mind, the greater the flipping through channels. Reading a book is a more useful form of subtle conversation, because while reading your mind listens more than processing and directly engaging in an act of learning.

While meditating, sometimes conversations of other people keep playing in your head. By being a listener, you are effectively participating in that chat. That is an example of a subtle conversation too.

Conversations to Silence

An untamed mind must find an outlet and conversations provide exactly that. It is one of the reasons that sleep is relaxing. For, among benefits to the body, at least you are not aware of the talkative mind beyond recollection of their dreams. Is it any wonder that brain cells only get repaired during sleep? A good way to understand your reliance on subtle conversations is to make a resolution to not watch TV, read newspaper or listen to radio for a certain number of days.

The nature of conversations, material or spiritual, can have a temporary bearing on the state of your mind. Any conversation can be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. The pleasant ones are the ones you find engaging and the unpleasant ones are the ones that you want to avoid. The neutral ones can swing either way depending on your interest. Interest in any conversation is the direct result of the conditioning of the mind. Someone who has conditioned his mind with repositories of information on politics or automobiles will find those topics interesting compared to those who may be more interested in fine arts or literature, for instance.

In any case, a sincere seeker should avoid harsh, useless, meaningless and abusive speech. Unrestrained speech and bogus conversations play a havoc on the quality of your meditation. When you sit down to meditate, your mind plays back these conversations to you. This causes agitation and restlessness.

The more you try to curb these conversations during your meditation, the more they spring up. When you are unable to tackle restlessness caused by mental chatter, it leads to frustration ruining your meditation right away. Rather than a meditator you become a mediator – trying to negotiate between the assault of random thoughts and the desire to be quiet.

Silence of the mind leads to nine different forms of awareness. It is impossible to experience any stage of awareness without silence. Each stage leads you to a unique experience.

Before I dive into the various states, it’s important to understand that a fleeting or one-off experience in meditation should not be confused with attaining a certain level of consciousness. For example, feeling a sensation in your spine or between your brows, or seeing flashes of light or glimpses into your future do not mean a meditator has reached an advanced level (unless you experience it every time you meditate). These experiences have little meaning. They can even be distractions, in fact. Consistency in anything comes from correct practice. And, practice is the basis of championing the art of meditation. Here are the nine states of awareness directly impacted by the quality of your silence and mindfulness.

1. Intellectual Awareness