If there’s one practice that you want to develop in Life –
learn to be silent for at least an hour daily. This practice is called ‘mouna’.
Most forms of meditation require that you
silence the environment before you begin to still the mind. But ‘mouna’ does not require the environment
to be silent, it requires you, your mind, to be silent. It instils in you the
capability to be just an observer of your own Life. Being an observer means not
to pass judgment, not to evaluate, not to condemn and not to appreciate. An
observer just is.
The human mind is always trafficking thoughts.
Of all kinds – relevant and irrelevant, both at all times. 24 x 7. Research
reveals that the average mind thinks 60,000 thoughts a day – and all of them
are soaked in worry, anxiety, fear, anger, grief, guilt and sometimes, some of
them are happy and peaceful thoughts too. ‘mouna’
helps in organizing this traffic and ensures that through your inner awareness,
you detach yourself from your situation and simply be an observer.
Let me share a story that I have read in one of
the books that Osho, the Master, wrote.
One morning Gautam Buddha was talking to his
disciples. The king, Prasenjita, had also come to listen to him. He was sitting
right in front of the Buddha. Prasenjita was not accustomed to sitting on the
floor – he was a king, you see – so he was feeling uncomfortable, fidgety,
changing sides, somehow trying not to disturb and not to be noticed by the Buddha
because he was concerned that he was unable to sit silently, peacefully. He was
continuously moving the big toe of his foot, for no reason, just to be busy
without business. Some people are like that – they cannot be without business;
they will still be busy!
Gautam Buddha stopped talking and asked
Prasenjita, “Can you tell me, why are you moving your big toe?”
In fact, Prasenjita himself was not aware of
it. Sometimes, you – and I – are doing a thousand and one things that we are
not aware of. Unless somebody points at them, you may not take any note of it.
The moment Buddha asked him, the toe stopped
moving. Buddha sought to know, “Why have you stopped moving the toe?”
Prasenjita said, “You are putting me in an
embarrassing situation. I don’t know why that toe was moving. This much I know:
that as you asked the question it stopped. I have not done anything – neither
was I moving it, nor have I stopped it.”
Buddha said to his disciples, “Do you see the
point? The toe belongs to the man. It moves, but he is not aware of its
movement. And the moment he becomes aware – because I asked the question – the
very awareness immediately stops the toe. He does not stop it. The very
awareness, that ‘It is stupid, why are you moving it?’ –
just the awareness is enough to stop it.”
This is really what ‘mouna’, and your being an observer, can help you with. It can help
you realize that you too can be ‘aware’ – and so too can stop doing many things
that you go on doing, just like that. Worrying incessantly is one of those
things that we all do – many a time without knowing that we are worrying. When
you learn to still the mind and organize your thoughts, you learn to weed out
worry. When you step outside and assume the role of an observer, you will see
the futility in investing your precious lifetime in debilitating thoughts. When
the observer in you becomes active, the mind becomes slowly powerless. Through
your continuous practice of ‘mouna’,
you eventually learn to fully still your mind, making it totally inactive. It is in that 100 % observer state that you discover the
secret to living happily and at peace with what is!
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