Note 3: Maddening Mind Chatter

21 notes for Meditators: Answers for Questions you never asked!

NOTE 3: MADDENING MIND CHATTER

Contrary to popular belief that once you start meditating that your mind noise will come down, you will feel the other way after few hard yards into meditation. Today let’s talk about one of the important hurdles meditators have to overcome.

As I mentioned before, the first lesson in meditation is always to learn how to watch your mind. Unless you know how to witness your thoughts there is no starting of meditation. When you start meditating usually you can watch your thoughts only during meditation. After some time into meditation practice, you can watch your thoughts even when you are not sitting for meditation. Most of the meditators have no idea about how noisy the mind is. I would like to share an analogy with you. Assume that you have a house near train tracks. And every time a train passes by you are hit with a loud noise of passing by train on tracks. Now just imagine a whole day without a minute break, trains keep passing by. Imagine the noise you have to face. Similarly, your mind is usually full of thoughts 24/7 when you live unconsciously. 99.99% of people live their entire life with a train passing inside their head!

As your ability to witness thoughts beyond meditation hours makes progress, you will start noticing thoughts everywhere. You experience flashes of witnessing while sitting, reading, taking bath, walking while working.. so on. These thoughts were always there but your ability to watch was not there. So what happens now is that you begin to feel that your mind chatter has become more. It is not the case. It is your witnessing that has made progress. But this noise and continuous chattering of mind are so much that meditators start getting tired of the madness. They start to feel restless and tired. At this stage the more you make progress the more you get mad because of so many thoughts going continuously in your head.

At this point, lots of meditators feel frustrated. They feel that after starting meditation they have lost peace of mind. It is not the case. You have been used to living unconsciously. So with the witnessing, you are overwhelmed by the rubbish inside your head.

And it gets worse. If you keep on meditating then you will witness more and more noise. This is the point where most of the students give up Meditation. This phase is the acid test for most of the meditators. This phase is also the longest one to overcome.

What can you do?

Nothing other than continue to meditate. The only thing you can remind yourself is that your mind chattering is not increased but your ability to witness your mind has become sharper. Instead of getting frustrated, start accepting this paranoid state. Start telling yourself that you have the willpower to overcome this and keep meditating. Please remember that it is not the witnessing which is causing the headache for you but the fact that you have to watch such rubbish uncontrolled thoughts you have been carrying inside your head

Gibberish meditation:

Gibberish allows us to express emotions and thoughts without the limitations and patterns of words, and to clean the “noise in the head”. Then we can enjoy the quiet space created within us.

This meditation has two stages.

First stage – gibberish

Start making nonsense sounds. Make any sound you like, but do not speak in a language, or use words that you know. Allow yourself to express whatever needs to be expressed within you. Throw everything out, go totally mad. Go consciously crazy. The mind thinks in words. Gibberish helps break up this pattern of continuous verbalization. Without suppressing your thoughts, you can throw them out in gibberish. Everything is allowed: sing, cry, shout, scream, mumble, talk. Let your body do whatever it wants: jump, lie down, pace, sit, kick and so on.

Second stage – silent sitting

After the gibberish, sit absolutely still, silent and relaxed, gathering your energy inwards, letting your thoughts drift further and further away from you, allowing yourself to fall into the deep silence and peacefulness that is at your center. You may sit on the floor or use a chair. Your head and back should be straight, your body relaxed, your eyes closed and your breathing natural.

Breathwork Exercise to help:

If you notice a persistent thought usually the ones which you have accumulated for a long time, They could be regret, breakup, hurt or humiliations, bad luck etc. Then you can do a small breath exercise I am going to share

As and when you feel there is too much noise. Keep taking few deep breaths and continue witnessing. Conscious breathing reduces the pain of witnessing chattering of the mind. Also, slow down as much as possible. Walking, talking, working…wherever possible bring your attention to your body as much as to your mind. Over some time along with witnessing, you will also learn to live with unconsciousness. This is what East calls being a warrior. Warrior is the one who fights with unconsciousness. Not in a fighting way but by meditation and awareness. Be a Warrior, keep on meditating and you will turn a corner sooner or later.

I send you love and awareness . let me know your thoughts and any feedback is welcome!

~love….Sureshg

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Sureshg is the founder of Breathwork India. If you have any doubts , feel free to write in comments or if you have personal or professional question then do use our contact details page to write to him.