- Composed by Hari Haran Rajendran -

 

After the Happiness and joy I had six months back, when I did one day
in seclusion, I wanted to have the experience again – yesterday I had
another chance to sit by myself and be in seclusion and watch my mind's
play.  I disconnected the phone lines, switched off the lights – no books, and no
journals to write. I spent the whole day in my meditation room which
is setup like a cave – free from any sensory distractions.

The nature of the mind is to think thoughts – the mind wants to dwell on
thoughts. Even though we are the masters of our mind, because of our
constant life activities, we become slaves to our mind. Without my
conscious will, my mind was mechanically wandering around - things to
do, dwelling on some ideas – my mind was trying to plan, wanted to go
and do some work, and was also dwelling on some fears, anxieties
etc. All these thought activities happen even in normal meditation,
but what surprised me was even when I have the whole day to do
nothing, my mind was habitually seeking for something to do. Essentially,
what all this means is that our mind seeks mental stimulation to be happy.
Because of its habits, our mind wants to be active, and wants some
goals to work on – something purposeful. Chanting helped me to keep my
mind occupied and eventually allow it to settle down by itself.
Chanting Sanskrit mantras is helpful to keep the mind occupied with the
specific goal to be with oneself. By allowing the mind to dwell on
one single thought, other thoughts are reduced eventually, again allowing
the mind to settle down.

The mind is so caught up in "doing" that even when enough time is
allowed, it does not settle down into "being". Life is always going to
be filled with activities – they are not going to end.
Only after realizing this fact can we take time to just "be". We
cannot postpone or wait for all of our other priorities to end to take time
to be with ourselves.

Get in touch with your "being" rather than always spending time
on "doing" and "having"!