The Chattering Mind

By Shevlin Sebastian

The other day I read that, on an average, according to scientists, we think about 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. I am not sure how they had calculated this. For a while now, I realised my mind was an endless conveyor belt of random, silly, and aimless thoughts. 

One day, for about thirty seconds, I noted down what I was thinking: I roamed through 12 different topics and thought about different people. It would have been more, but my mind had become self- conscious. 

When I told a friend about this, she said, perhaps, the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein would have very few thoughts, hence the clarity of his thinking. One thing is clear: the moment you stop thinking, by listening to your breathing, you enter the silence within you. But to silence the mind is a gargantuan task. I believe I spend one minute out of 24 hours in the present. The rest of the time, I am in the past or the future. 

So, in this state of pessimism, it was no surprise when I saw the book ‘Quiet your Mind by American psychologist John Selby at the Ernakulam Public Library, I grabbed it. There was an urgent need within me to silence the mind and expand the abilities of the brain. 

The book is a simple and easy read. I have taken some suggestions and have tried to implement it. The one good thing I gained from reading the book is that now I am conscious of what I am thinking. 

This slows down the mind.  

Here are some quotes from the book: 

Most of our upsetting emotions are caused not by what’s going around us, but by fear-based thoughts, habitually running through our minds. 

All human beings are constantly judging the world around them through ‘automatic’ thoughts. These thoughts judge present situations based on past experience. 

Our thoughts almost always stimulate emotional responses in our bodies. 

Our chronic thoughts: memories of the past, judgements of the present, and imaginations of the future. 

As soon as you consciously accept the truth of the moment, your heart can open, and your intuitive mind can come into play. 

You cannot change the present moment. But reality is constantly evolving, and you can take part in the evolution. 

Anger is always a response to thoughts running through our minds. 

Our thoughts influence our minds. 

The simple act of shifting one’s mental focus from thinking to experiencing changes one’s basic neurological and physiological functioning.

We should purposefully shift from a negative thought to a present-moment sensory input such as breathing, sounds and enjoyable sights. 

Conscious perceptual shifts can change your inner experience. 

In contemporary society, there is a chronic fixation upon deductive thinking as opposed to intuitive reflections. 

In order to enter the higher states of consciousness, we must shift our attention to the physical sensory realm of immediate perception. 

The shift to sensory awareness quiets the usual chatter of the mind so that a deeper intuitive experience can emerge. 

When your inner voice is habitually anxious, it thinks worried thoughts, and these generate fearful emotions, choices, and actions. 

In every situation, consider to what extent you fully process the actual perceptive experience as opposed to projecting what you expect to see in that situation. 

When thoughts stop, the body knows what to do, and does it with perfection and pleasure unknown to the thinking mind. 

The key to deep sensual release lies in quieting the flow of thoughts through your mind while making love.