How to Calm and Relax your Mind once and for all?

 

In today’s world, it’s of paramount importance to calm your mind in every situation, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, as of now, our minds are running in a hundred and twelve directions at a particular time—totally restless and full of ripples.

If you pay attention, then you will see that you keep on talking non-stop inside your mind. The more you talk, the more unpeaceful and restless your mind becomes. To minimize this mental chatter is the way to make the mind calm.

We think that we will feel calm and composed when we get what we are looking for. The only problem with that philosophy is that even after getting what we want, the ‘feeling’ of it doesn’t last very long.

The solution to one thing is merely the base for the next problem or the next desire and it keeps on continuing forever and ever. Fulfilling a small desire makes our mind calm for a shorter period of time while fulfilling a big desire, consequently makes our mind calm for a longer period of time.

The real deal is to know and find out whether there’s a way, following which our minds can remain peaceful irrespective of whether—we succeed or fail—things go according to us or not.

Not Doing Anything is the Solution To Calm Your Mind

Now before you go and leave everything and just sit at a corner waiting for a miracle to happen, sorry to break it to you, that’s not how this works.

If you wanna be successful in the outside world, you have to bust your ass to make a difference. But when it comes to the inner world, sometimes not doing anything is the answer.

By not doing anything, I mean being in a state where you are just there. You are not thinking, you are not speaking, you are not moving. Just peacefully observing and being in the present moment completely.

Now, how can we achieve this state? One way, which we mostly do, is postponing things. Playing the “I will be happy when x,y.z things happen” game, which is a sheer waste of time.

The other way is to go and see for yourself that what it is that’s making your mind restless at this particular moment. Don’t pawn it off to someone else, only you and you alone can see based on your experiences, that what’s really happening to you.

Making your mind calm is a lot like trying to sleep. The more you try to sleep, the farther away you get from actually sleeping. But the minute you surrender yourself, that’s when you actually fall asleep.

That’s the case with our pretty little minds. The more we try and do things to make the mind calm, the more ripples we generate and the more chaotic mind becomes.

You just have to let go—surrender—to calm the storm in you. The best way to do it? Just by listening to the sound of silence. And in case, you have no clue as to what the hell is this sound thing, read this article.

 

Reality VS Imagination

Our minds are funny. It can’t differentiate between reality and imagination. Want proof? 

You all must have had some dreams. Now, when you are being chased by a dinosaur, or surfing in a city that is half underwater, or are greeted by the most good-looking ghosts, at that particular moment, it feels like it’s happening to you for real, right?

It’s only when you wake up that you realize that it was all but a dream. And you stop getting bothered by it.

When it comes to real life, so many of us are still sleeping, lost in our own imaginations, and keep suffering for things that are not even a reality.

It’s just like even though you woke up from your sleep, but are still being chased by a dinosaur. Who can possibly save you in such a situation? Sadly, that’s the reality of so many people. 

Notice the irony? People living in their imaginary world is the unfortunate reality of our times. 

Your business didn’t make a profit and you think it’s not gonna work out, your partner leaves you and you think you won’t be able to make it, you get fired from your job and you think you are a worthless loser who’s good for nothing. Anything that doesn’t go according to the plan and we already start imagining that the apocalypse is here and start panicking.

What if you start putting a question mark on your assumptions? What if it ain’t as bad as you think it is? What if it’s just a tiny setback instead of a major failure you think it is? What if it’s only your paranoid mind that is bending the reality like never before because that’s just what it does?

Well, if you could sincerely do that, if you could really put it into practice, you’d be in a much much better position to distinguish between reality and imagination. 

And when you do that, you’d stop getting bothered by your fancy imagination just like you don’t get bothered by what you see in your dreams once you wake up and realize that it’s all a dream.

The best way to differentiate between what’s real and what’s your imagination is that, if it’s real then everyone will be having the same reaction when they are put in the same situation as yours. 

You are gonna burn if you jump into the fire, you are gonna break some bones or even die if you jump from a high rise, and so on. Reality doesn’t bend its rules for anyone.

But when it comes to imaginary stuff, different people are gonna have different reactions to different situations. 

Some people are gonna rejoice in a breakup while some will get depressed, some people will instantly bounce back after a business failure and knock it out of the park while some people will go hide their faces, some people will get all the more fired up after getting handed over a pink slip and land an even better job than before and some will think they just don’t have it in them.

So, all in all, if your mind is pestering you for something, first put a question mark over it, like a really big one, and then patiently see whether it’s a reality or just your imagination. If it’s reality, then there’s nothing to get morose about because well, it’s what it is, and if it’s your imagination, then there’s definitely nothing to get super stressed about.

Just like you wake up when having a bad dream, you can put your mind at ease when you see that it’s only your imagination and not reality.

 

Ask ‘The Question’

Probably the single most important question that you should ask, which most of us ask indirectly, is “what particular action should you take in the distinct situations of life”, to ensure that our minds are calm.

People say you gotta be peaceful from the inside. So, now if someone comes and starts attacking you or your family physically, then will you let him do that since you are an ardent believer of peace? Will you simply sit and watch if you see a crime being committed right in front of you? Noooo, right? You have to fight in that particular situation and act.

So, that is what we are gonna find out in this article, to figure out, how to tackle a given situation to the best of our abilities, in order to keep our minds completely calm and composed.

 

Dilemma and Doubt 

We face a dilemma only when there is a doubt about what to do and what not to do. 

Does a cat have any doubt before eating a mouse? Will she ever have a conflict of whether to eat the mouse or not? Nope, she isn’t gonna think twice before doing that. Similarly, the mouse won’t have any conflicts. If a cat is coming for him, then he gotta run like anything. If he starts thinking about if he should run or not, then by that time we all know what’s gonna happen to him.

Once we think about it, these animals don’t really have a shred of doubt about the actions they take. Now let me ask you guys a question. All the problems you have in your life, what is that one thing that leads to the inception of the problem?

You yourself! I mean, seriously. Think. If you only are not there, then there are no problems left, right? So, we are the root cause of the problems. I know, sounds super weird and jumbled but makes total sense. Now the question comes, who are we?

 

What Are We?

Soul? Body? Thoughts? Feelings & Emotions? A culmination of them? Who the hell are we? Are we what our parents, families, and friends think about us? Or are we what we think about ourselves all day?

Now, I know what your answer is gonna be. The latter, right? But how can we be what we think about ourselves? Our thinking keeps on changing with time, with new information. We all had different dreams as kids, and it’s constantly changing as we are growing up.

Are we what we think we are?

OR

Are we what we actually do all day?

We think a lot about all the activities we want to do, but how often do we succeed in them? Isn’t there a huge gap between what we think we can do and what we are actually able to do at the end of the day?

You think you will not get angry again, but you do. You think you will not talk to your ex again, but you do. We all make huge plans, but rarely are we able to conquer them. We all think “it won’t happen again the next time”, but it does happen, again and again, and again.

There is literally a world of a difference between the two. So, everything that changes, your thoughts, your actions, your body, your memories, your feelings, your emotions; you have to ask yourselves whether you are something that keeps on changing?

OR

Are you something that never changes? Think patiently, because it is questions like these, that can calm your mind, once and for all.

 

Analogies will Make Things Simpler

Are you the clouds that keep on coming and going or are you the sky that remains as it is? Are you the railway platform that stays at its place or are you the trains that come and go?

If you say you are the train, then who would watch the numerous trains that come and go all day long. So, in order to observe the change, there needs to be someone or something that doesn’t change. Savvy?

Take a TV for example. When you are watching television, then millions of pixels come and go, to showcase your favorite program.

Now, the pixels, that are constantly changing, need a fixed background on which they can project themselves. That’s why the screen remains fixed. If there is no screen, then nothing will remain. If the screen also keeps on changing, then how would we observe the actual change?

Likewise, whatever you experience all day long, at the level of your body, mind, heart, and spirit, there has to be something that doesn’t change one bit.

 

Know Who You Really Are To Calm Your Mind

All you gotta do is ask yourselves, are you the perpetually altering flux, or are you the one that’s witnessing all the change?

If one can actually understand that we are the CONSTANT thing, the one that doesn’t change be able to live like this; then there will be nothing left for you to do, your mind will be absolutely calm and composed.

You are the consciousness that is observing everything and this consciousness doesn’t change. It was the same when you were a kid, and it is the same now too. Once you accept this as a fact, not just as a theory but actually feel it practically, then everything becomes a game for you.

Whatever is coming and going in and through the consciousness, your thoughts, feelings, actions, emotions, everything; they won’t be able to overpower the calm of your mind.

 

Are We In Control?

Some of you may enquire that if we are the constant, then whatever changes are happening in our lives at any level is ultimately caused by us only?

See, at the body level, 99.9% of actions that are required to keep it running are out of your control. Your thoughts won’t be able to control a thing. You can’t go and start to think of a better digestion mechanism. These actions are involuntary. Your breathing requires no thoughts. But we can bring them in and disturb the natural way of breathing which is why it is far better to keep your thoughts out of such departments.

When under stress, anxiety, or excitement our breathing pattern changes because our thoughts intervene with the system. Notice this the next time. Thoughts can interfere with the digestion process as well. Once we panic or stress about something, our stomach starts acting weird which makes us uneasy.

Therefore it is imperative we keep our thoughts from mingling with the way our body works. Our body is self-sufficient.

Animals have pretty efficient inner-body mechanisms because they are clear with what to eat, what not to eat, how much to eat, and moreover, they have a pretty rudimentary language because of which their thoughts don’t interfere with their bodily functions.

We do what we shouldn’t do, and we don’t do what we should do, because the thought interferes in between. We stop eating when depressed, and double down when excited, not giving a rat’s ass to the digestion process.

 

Thoughts And Intelligence

On one side is nature’s supreme intelligence, where everything is absolutely perfect and requires no meddling of any kind whatsoever. Right from the ants to the whales to humans, everything is perfect and is acting according to its nature.

Our lives start with perfection. A newborn already knows that he needs to cry the minute he pops out. So, what actually disrupts this perfection, when we grow up?

T H O U G H T S

What are ‘thoughts’? How do they come into existence? Do you think a newborn thinks about anything when he sees your beautiful face? He sees, but he doesn’t know who is seeing. He hears, but he is not aware of the hearer.

The baby doesn’t yet have an identity of his own. There is no “I, me, & myself”, for the baby. A baby has the purest consciousness. Then fast forward to when he starts speaking; language comes into the picture.

Thoughts can’t exist without language.

That perfect child is then fed with the bullshit that he is the body he resides in. He has been implanted with the imperfection that he is his name, job, money, thoughts, and what not as he grows up.

All our lives, we go like, “I am correct, I did this, I am right, you are wrong, you screwed up, you betrayed me, etc.” What are these “I” and “you”? These are nothing but thoughts.

The fewer thoughts interfere with the intelligence of nature, the better off you will be in the long run. Right now, the thoughts are controlling us and making us do things. It actually needs to be the other way around as it was meant to be if you want to calm your mind.

This is only possible when you yourself are not a thought. But as of now, we are identified with our thoughts only, which is the crux of all the issues.

 

The Birth of a Thought

Wanna know how a ‘thought’ actually comes into existence?

Animals and babies don’t have thoughts as we do. They have a pretty basic structure. They just have enough thoughts for survival instincts. You won’t find animals contemplating things as we do. A female monkey won’t get depressed if she finds out that her partner is having an affair. A deer won’t think twice if he sees a tiger charging toward him, he will just run like never before.

But now it doesn’t mean that you turn into an animal to combat thoughts (wait, we already are one). People make rash decisions by reading anything on the internet. So, no, you don’t have to go back; you have to move forward. Animals can’t sit and make this inquiry of what is a ‘thought’ like we are right now.

How does a thought take birth? Whatever information has been installed in your mind, that becomes the basis of all the thoughts you have. Thoughts can’t exist without information. Information is the raw material of your thoughts. Savvy?

If one hypothetically removes all the information you have, then there will be no place left for any kind of thoughts whatsoever? “Water is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and formless”. If you don’t have this information, will you be able to think anything about water?

You can still see, feel, and drink water the same way as before, but this time you won’t have any thoughts floating around about water. If you guys have pets, then notice them. They may hear us but they don’t understand us. They may feel us and see the signs we make but they don’t get our language.

Does a dog think about anything if he watches the TV? It is exactly like watching a movie in a language you don’t understand without subtitles. You will see, hear, and feel the sensations but you aren’t gonna understand a thing they say.

 

Improve the Inflow of Information To Calm Your Mind

Now, the question arises, all this information that you have; is this fed by you or someone else? There are many layers to this answer.

One layer of information has been installed into your systems by someone else. The type of information circulated in your friends and families automatically gets embedded in your brain choicelessly. More than 90% of the information we have, comes to us without our choice, simply because of the people we are surrounded with.

Furthermore, it is not even up to you to decide the people you wanna be with. You don’t get to choose your family. You become friends naturally. So, ultimately, only 10% of the information you chose yourself, through different mediums like books, the internet, blogs, etc. And this 10% makes all the difference.

You see, information is information. There can’t be any thoughts without information. There won’t be any actions without thoughts. And without action, you can’t do anything in the materialistic world.

As you can see, it will be technically incorrect to say that “You did this right/wrong.” You actually don’t do anything. It is the information, out of which a ‘thought’ is born that is making us do everything. Information acts upon information, not you. One can’t possibly think outside the set of information he has. To understand all this, you need an absolutely peaceful and calm mind, otherwise, all this will seem like a theory to you.

The best way to have a calm mind is to live a life that is free from this information. It doesn’t mean you have to abandon it.

The actual meaning of the above statement is that you can use the information as and when required, but the information can’t use you!

As of now, more than 99.99% of the population’s lives are driven by information. You can call it mind, thoughts, or memories; they all are the same. You beat yourself up, trying to figure out “why do I think so negatively?”

But the thing is, you are not actually thinking, these thoughts come on their own, based upon the information stored inside you. To sum up, I would say, to make your life better, simply improve the information you intake.

 

Is Information the Answer?

Can information solve everything in your life? Not quite. Because information is the ‘real problem’. Can you see this truth? Nature’s intelligence is not the problem, the wrong information about nature is the problem.

Now the question is what kind of information does one need to be satisfied with his life? Actually, the better question is to ask if one even needs any information or thoughts to live a happy life? Surely you need the information to be successful in the outside world, but it isn’t gonna guarantee that it will make your mind calm.

So, I will ask again, do we really need any kind of information whatsoever to be happy from the inside? Can one actually be satisfied by thinking that is based upon information?

Take it another way. If you wanna sleep comfortably, so what kind of information will be helpful there? What will you actually think about, that makes you sleep? Wait a minute, do you need to think to sleep, or does sleep comes the moment you stop thinking? Think about it.

 

Final Thoughts to calm your mind

That’s real happiness, real satisfaction. When there are no thoughts left in us, the mind already becomes calm. That is precisely the reason we all love our sleep so much.

Thoughts become useless, as far as happiness, love, satisfaction, and peace are concerned. You can’t forcefully make your mind peaceful. The more you try to make it calm, the more ripples it will generate.

To put it simply, thoughts are necessary for materialistic success. Without thoughts, you can’t do anything outside. But for the inner world, thoughts are absolutely useless.

Ultimately this itself is a ‘thought’ only. So, this information basically says that information is useless to calm our minds. We are using thoughts to help us realize that thoughts are useless. Ironical, right?

Once you see this thought that ‘thoughts are useless’, then you don’t need this thought itself. Just like when you are thirsty, then you have the thought of drinking water. So, does that thought remain once you quench your thirst? Exactly my point.

Similarly, once you understand this thought that the “thoughts are not required,” to be peaceful from within, then even this particular thought will go away.

Once you get rid of all the nonsensical thoughts, then even though you will see things but you won’t think, you will hear sounds but won’t imagine, you will feel objects without envisioning, you will just be. No judgments, no thinking. Just pure LOVE.

If you just practice for as long as 5min a day, being in this state, then this itself is a superb start. And the best part is that you don’t actually need to go anywhere or do anything, you just simply have to observe what’s happening in the present moment.

Ultimately this will empower you to see the planet in a completely different light and that will be totally different from how everyone sees the world right now. Then you will actually experience real happiness. That will actually make your mind calm, FOREVER!

 

 

 

“There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.” 

-James Carrol