If you can sit quietly in a room alone for a long period, you are ready to explore the spiritual side of yours.
Abhilash Rajendran
We are happy to let our mind wander aimlessly but we are scared to befriend silence and go into our inner world.
We are rarely honest with our emotions and physical needs. We cover them out of fear or shame – or through the evergreen excuse of ‘what other people will think’. In solitude, we come to face to face with the real us. This hurts and therefore we look for distractions.
We are ready to run from our problems but not ready to face them. This is the reason why we cannot sit quietly for a long period alone.
We today know everything about other people but nothing about ourselves. We are scared to connect with our true self. Through technological innovation, we are getting closer and closer to others but farther and farther away from ourselves.
In crude nature human beings are weaklings, human beings are full of fear, so there is a natural tendency for us to seek company. We seek company to overcome and face fear. Hinduism teaches human beings to overcome this fear so that there is supreme happiness. One can overcome this fear only by knowing one’s true self.
The addiction to technology in the modern world is the result of fear. Even when we are alone in a room, we are constantly surrounded by gadgets like the smartphone; we want to make sure we are connected with someone. We use the noise of the world to keep ourselves out of fear of being alone.
We think we are becoming freer with the smartphone and other communication technologies but it is the opposite, we are getting more and more addicted. Our fear has increased manifold and today we are far away from our true self. We are today totally helpless. We cannot even remember the telephone number of our family members. We have no issues if we forget important medicines but we get a heart attack if misplace the smartphone.
We think the internet has made us more wise and intelligent. But very few people know how they feel, what they really want and what their real problems are. Our thoughts have been twisted and we are put into a zone where we pay for everything including for manipulating our thoughts. Anyone can start a rumor and cause riots today and we call ourselves more wise and intelligent. Unscrupulous people have started playing with other people’s fear and phobia. Instances of outsiders being killed by mobs due to fake news spread on the smartphone are on the rise.
The only way to overcome fear and addiction to technology is to face solitude. Instead of using distractions like television, internet, smartphone etc we need to face our true self by sitting quietly all alone without any gadgets. This is when we will realize our true potential and our true being.
Once we can cross the initial barrier of being alone. Then we will be able to enjoy freedom and get creative. Thoughts and ideas will start to flow.
Once you pass the initial test of solitude, you will get stimulation to explore unknown regions of your mind. You learn new things and you learn more about your concentration levels and about your hidden talents.
Sitting quietly in a room can be unpleasant in the beginning. This unpleasant period is of introspection — be honest about yourself, your thoughts, feelings, hopes, likes, dislikes. You might come across unpleasant incidents, might remember incidents both bad and good, mind remembers people both bad and good.
In the long term, this few moments of unpleasantness is worth all the effort. It opens the gate of real happiness and you really understand who really you are.
Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) – French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian – wrote –
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.www.hindu-blog.com
Abhilash Rajendran