We are living in the most materially prosperous time in history, the most informed, and most of us are free from hunger and traditional infectious diseases. Yet peace and happiness seems so elusive.
We humans are on perpetual quests. Constantly trying to understand ourselves, our world, our fellow beings, and that super-being, entity or energy that people commonly call God.
In reality we are not looking for understanding, rather we look for meaning. The difference is vast.
In seeking meaning we use the intellect, and the mind is never satisfied, its easily confused and often mislead. To seek meaning is to enter a labyrinth, a never ending maze.
In seeking understanding is to feel, by experiencing with all our senses, energies, our spirit. This is more likely to bring peace, for it brings harmony between ourselves and existence.
This is why we often see no correlation between power, wealth, status, and happiness and peace.
To attain peace and happiness, one has to journey within the self, alone.
I say alone because we always carry a crowd with us in our minds, and this crowd will not let us travel. This crowd is entertained by us and we by them.
The first step to getting rid of the crowd is to bore them. To not provide nor receive from them any entertainment and this is possible only we grow silent and live in the present. You can view the video on Living in the Present on YouTube or read my blog here.
The secret is to be silent. We imagine that we have to run away to the Himalayas or to the forest or a cave, but this is not necessary not even a precondition.
To be silent one has to spend a significant time alone. We can be alone even whilst in a crowd or while living normal lives, working, playing, studying, cooking, walking in the park, etc. One churns thoughts just like we churn milk cream to get butter, to distill thoughts and then to consume these distilled thoughts until there is nothing left to consume.
I am extremely talkative when in public, but most of my time is spent alone and in silence, be it gardening working, walking, etc. The public provides me stimulus for learning and developing to obtain meaning and the silence provides me the depth for understanding. With the passage of time we will grow weary of the material and the mental but charged by the spiritual, but this will happen only when we spend more time alone and discover the sound of silence.
Seeking understanding is better than merely seeking meaning.
Extract from my upcoming book, 'Achieving Success and Realising Happiness'
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