(Thought -Random)
By Steven Taylor
Modern
humans have lost touch with their inner "true self". Silence and
stillness are a means to recovering happiness and contentment.
In
the modern world silence has practically ceased to exist. The human
race has stamped its authority over the planet Earth not just by
covering its surface with concrete and destroying its plant and animal
life, but also by burying the natural sounds of the Earth beneath a
cacophony of man-made noise. We live our lives against the background of
this cacophony, with the jagged mechanical sounds of urban-industrial
society continually assaulting our ears: the roar of cars, aeroplanes
and trains, the clanging and thudding of machinery, the noise of
building and renovating, the chatter of radios and TVs in other people's
cars and houses, and pop music blaring from every conceivable place.
But nothing, of course, has done more to obliterate silence than the
car. In the modern world it's very difficult to go anywhere where
there's no possibility of being disturbed by the sound of passing cars,
and the only chance that city or town dwellers get to experience
something of the quietness which existed everywhere in the pre-car world
is sometimes on Sundays, when the mad rushing to and fro of modern life
slows down. This quietness seems so foreign now that it seems difficult
to believe that a hundred years ago and before it was everywhere all
the time. Back then this quietness would even have filled the busiest
city centres, which would have probably had a noise level equivalent to
that of a modern small village.
There's
also more noise than ever before inside our houses. It's unusual to go
into a house nowadays where there isn't at least one television set
chattering away somewhere, even if the residents aren't actually
watching it, and other forms of home entertainment compete against TV to
produce the most noise: radios, CD players, computer and video games
etc. In fact the only sound which is largely absent from people's houses
nowadays is the voices of their occupants actually talking to one
another.
Living
in the midst of all this noise is bound to have a bad effect on us. All
man-made noise is fundamentally disturbing—we find the sound of birds
singing or of wind rushing through trees pleasing, but mechanical noise
always jars and grates. And since we live our lives against a background
of mechanical noise it follows that there's always an undercurrent of
agitation inside us, produced by the noise. This noise is certainly one
of the reasons why modern life is so stressful as well. In modern life
our senses are bombarded with massive amounts of external stimuli—our
fields of vision are always crowded with different (and constantly
shifting) things, and our ears are bombarded with a bewildering variety
of sounds, all of which clamour for our attention. Our senses have to
absorb and process all this material, which takes up a lot of energy,
and means that we're liable to become drained of energy or 'run down'
easily. We can get out of this state by removing ourselves from all
external stimuli and letting our energy-batteries naturally recharge
themselves—i.e., by relaxing. But there's so much external stimuli
around in the modern world and people are so unaccustomed to the absence
of it, that we may never be able relax properly, which could mean
living in a permanently 'run down' state.
This
lack of quietness has also meant is that people are no longer used to
silence, and have even, as a result, become afraid of it. Along with
inactivity, silence has become something which most people are
determined to avoid at all costs, and which, when they are confronted
with it, unnerves them. People have become so used to the frantic pace
and the ceaseless activity of modern life that they feel uneasy when
they're left at a loose end with nothing to occupy their attention even
for a few moments, and they feel equally uneasy when the noise they live
their lives against the background of subsides. Why else is it that
they need to have their radios and televisions chattering away in the
background even when they're not paying attention to them?
In
other words, in the modern world silence has become an enemy. And this
is a terrible shame, because in reality silence is one of our greatest
friends, and can—if it's allowed to reveal itself to us—have a
powerfully beneficial effect on us.
Inner Noise
It's not just the noise outside us which causes us problems, though, but also the noise inside us.
In
the same way that the natural quietness and stillness of the world
around us is always covered over with man-made noise, the natural
quietness of our minds is constantly disturbed by the chattering of our
ego-selves. This chattering fills our minds from the moment we wake up
in the morning till the moment we go to sleep at night—an endless stream
of daydreams, memories, deliberations, worries, plans etc. which we
have no control over and which even continues (in the form of dreams)
when we fall asleep. This 'inner noise' has as many bad effects as the
mechanical noise outside us. It actually creates problems in our lives,
when we mull over tiny inconveniences or uncertainties which seem to
become important just because we're giving so much attention to them,
and when we imagine all kinds of possible scenarios about future events
instead of just taking them as they come. It means that we don't live in
the present, because we're always either planning for and anticipating
the future or remembering the past—'wandering about in times that do not
belong to us and never thinking of the one that does' as Blaise Pascal
wrote. And this constant inner chattering also means that we can never
give our full attention to our surroundings and to the activities of our
lives. Our attention is always partly taken up by the thoughts in our
minds, so that wherever we are and whatever we're doing we're never
completely there.
It's
probably possible to say that there's also more of this 'inner noise'
inside human beings than there's ever been before. The hectic pace and
the constant activity of our lives, the massive amount of external
stimuli we're bombarded with, and the barrage of information which the
mass media sends our way, have made our minds more restless and active.
We've got to juggle dozens of different problems and concerns in our
minds just to get by from day to day, and every new thing we see or
every new piece of information which is sent our way is potentially the
beginning of a whole new train of thought to occupy our minds.
The True Self
Ultimately,
the most serious consequence of both this inner chattering and the
noise and activity of the modern world is that they separate us from our
true selves.
Our
'true self' might be called the ground, or the essence, of our beings.
It's the pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-itself which
remains when we're not actually conscious of anything. It's what
remains when our the activity of our senses and the activity of our
minds cease. The sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the
thoughts which run through our minds are like the images on a cinema
screen, but our 'true self' is the cinema screen itself, which is still
there even when there aren't any images being projected on to it.
Experiencing
this 'consciousness-in-itself' can have a massively therapeutic effect.
It brings a sense of being firmly rooted in ourselves, of being truly
who we are. We also have a sense of being truly where we are, realising
that before we were only half-present, and everything we see around us
seems intensely real and alive, as if our perceptions have become much
more acute. But above all, we experience a profound sense of inner peace
and natural happiness. As the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always
held, the nature of consciousness-in-itself (which means the
consciousness inside us and the consciousness which pervades the whole
universe) is bliss. Getting into contact with the pure consciousness
inside us enables us, therefore, to experience this bliss. Indeed, it
could be said that it's only when we do this that we can experience true
happiness. Usually what we think of as happiness is hedonistic or
ego-based—that is, based around pressing instinctive 'pleasure buttons'
or around receiving attention and praise from others and increasing our
self-esteem. But the kind of deep and rich happiness we experience when
we're in touch with the ground or essence of our beings is a natural,
spiritual happiness, which doesn't depend on anything external, and
doesn't vanish as soon as the thing which produced it is taken away.
It's a happiness which comes from experiencing the divine inside us—and
also the divine inside everything else, since the pure consciousness
inside us is the same pure consciousness inside everything else, and the
pure consciousness of the universe itself.
Making Contact with the True Self
Whether
we're in touch with this 'true self' or not depends on how much
external stimuli our senses are taking in from the world around us, and
on how much activity there is going on in our minds. If there is a lot
of noise, movement and activity taking place around us then we can't
help but give our attention to it; and in the same way, when there is a
lot of 'inner noise' taking place we have to give our attention to that
too. And when our attention is completely absorbed in this way—either by
external stimuli on their own, such as when we watch TV; by 'inner
noise' on its own, such as when we daydream; or by both of them at the
same time—it's impossible for us to be in contact with our 'true self'
to any degree, in the same way that it's impossible to see a cinema
screen in itself when it's full of dancing images. Being in contact with
our 'true self' is a state of attentionless-ness, when our minds are
completely empty.
What
we have to do if we want to get into contact with this part of
ourselves is, therefore, to withdraw our attention from these things.
And this is, of course, what we do when we meditate: first of all, we
remove ourselves from external stimuli, by sitting in a quiet room and
closing our eyes. And then there's only 'inner noise' standing between
us and consciousness-in-itself, which we try to quieten by concentrating
on a mantra or on our breathing. If we manage to stop the inner noise
(and therefore stop our attention being absorbed in it) pure
consciousness immerses us and we become our true selves.
And
this brings us back to the most serious problem caused by the massive
amount of external stimuli (including noise) which our senses are
bombarded with in the modern world, and by the intensified 'inner noise'
which modern life generates. It's not just a question of completely
closing yourself off to external stimuli and shutting down 'inner
noise', so that you can experience a state of total immersion in pure
consciousness. It's possible to have a foot in both camps, so to
speak—to live a normal life in the world, being exposed to external
stimuli and experiencing inner noise, and at the same time still be
rooted in your real self. That is, it's possible to be partially
immersed in consciousness-in-itself, and for your attention to be
partially absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. But this can only
happen when there is just a moderate degree of both of the latter.
It
would probably have been quite easy for our ancestors to live in this
way, because they weren't exposed to a great deal of external stimuli
and because their lives were relatively slow-paced and stress-free,
which would have meant that their attention needn't have been completely
absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. Perhaps this even partly
explains why native peoples seem to possess a natural contentment which
modern city dwellers have lost—because their more sedate lives mean that
they're able to be in touch with the ground of their being as they go
about their lives, and that they can therefore continually experience
something of the bliss of which is the nature of
consciousness-in-itself.
For
us, however, this has become very difficult. There's always so much
noise and activity both inside and outside us that our attention is
always completely absorbed, so that we can't be in contact with our real
selves. We spend all our time living outside ourselves, lost in the
external world of activity and stimuli or in the inner world of our own
thoughts. We're like a person who plans to go away for a few days but
finds so much to occupy them in the place they go to that they never go
home again, and never again experience the peace and contentment which
lie there. This is certainly one of the reasons why so many people
nowadays seem to live in a state of dissatisfaction—because they've lost
touch with the natural happiness inside them. That natural happiness
has been buried underneath a storm of external stimuli and what Meister
Eckhart called 'the storm of inward thought'.
As
a result of this it's essential for us, in the modern world, to go out
of our way to cultivate silence ourselves. Circumstances may oblige us
to live in cities, and our jobs may be stressful and demanding, but
we're still free to remove ourselves from external stimuli and to try to
quieten our minds by meditating, going out into the countryside, or
just by sitting quietly in our rooms. We don't have to fill our free
time with attention-absorbing distractions like TV and computer games,
which take us even further away from ourselves. We should do the
opposite: stop our attention being absorbed like this so that we can
find ourselves again.
We
need silence and stillness to become our true selves and to be truly
happy. 'Be still,' said Jesus, 'and know that I am God.' But he might
have added, 'and know that you are God.'
About the Author
Steven Taylor is a free-lance writer and teacher residing in Manchester, England.
This article was published in New Renaissance magazine Vol. 8, No. 2
