Sound of Silence

Glenn Stewart Coles, 9251 Yonge Street, Suite 8-924, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, L4C 9T3

Text Box: For centuries, spiritual men and women have practiced the ritual of silence. When Christian monks and nuns stayed silent, the lack of verbal communication was intended to prevent distraction from prayer. Whether thoughts were solely focused on god or a multitude of other topics was up to each individual. Buddhist monks created the term ‘zazen’ to describe a form of meditation that involves ‘just sitting’. Practitioners were urged to quiet the mind. Attendants stood behind the meditating monks with bamboo sticks, sharply reminding those who fidgeted that movement was not allowed. Once when I was practicing falun gong, I was having difficulty with a pose that involved holding my hands up beside my head for an extended time. After a minute or two my arms were tired and I struggled to keep them in the air. I weakened a few times and lowered my arms, raising them again when I could. At the end another practitioner stated that my difficulty was ‘too much mind’. The more that I thought about the muscular strength required to hold up my arms, the more difficult it became to maintain the position. Once I learned to clear my mind, holding the position was much simpler. For the past few weeks, Oprah Winfrey has been hosting on-line classes with Eckhart Tolle, author of ‘Stillness Speaks’ and ‘The Power of Now’. His latest book ‘A New Earth’ is focused on discovering individual purpose and connecting to mass consciousness. For ten weeks millions of people are participating in discussions and exercises, moving towards enlightenment. The basic premise of Mr. Tolle’s books is that if we quiet the mind, we open ourselves to a higher level of consciousness. Around the world, people are becoming silent. While the thoughts of mankind are responsible for our tremendous growth as a species, as individuals thoughts can prevent our development. Functioning with egocentricity, the majority of thoughts are about our selves. Whether we are recalling details of past events, planning future activities, participating in discussion or making one of a thousand daily judgments, we base our thoughts on our own survival. As we consider the potentialities of our future, thoughts are influenced by our background and training. We believe that the future must represent a culmination of what we know from the past. Trapped by our history, we move towards a state of panic and fear. There is a general anxiety throughout humanity that each of us feels. Within the mass consciousness is the belief that our planet is doomed. One way or another, we expect our world to get worse. Deep within each of us, the survival of our species is in doubt. Though we could prove them to be true, many of our thoughts and beliefs are incorrect. In order to advance we must test the limitations of our belief systems. Whenever we are sure that something is true, there is always another truth just as valid. Though we are each confident in our viewpoint, there is always someone else with an equally valid opposing viewpoint. In order to justify that our thoughts and ideas are better than someone else’s, we tend to believe that the opposing individual is of lesser value. If he were as smart as I am, he would believe what I believe. By justifying our incorrect thoughts we create a world of conflict. Instead, if we learn to be silent the beauty of the world falls into place. When we quiet our mind, all doubts, fears and worries fade away. When we quiet the mind, we realize that everything is beautiful and everything is perfect. When we realize that our important decisions are not about ‘me’ but about ‘us’, we move towards a future where mankind exists in harmonious bliss. The shift is underway. Just be quiet and listen. © Copyright Glenn Stewart Coles, 2008 First Published March 17, 2008

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Sound of Silence

Once I learned how to clear my mind, holding the position was much simpler.

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