No Gaps, no Aha moments.
The frantic world in which we live is set to return, the rat race that offers no gaps anywhere.
Whether the racket is happening in our own heads or in the outside environment, there is no relief from the constant stimulation of our world. Our senses are assaulted throughout the day by the lure of gaudy images or the clamour of incessant noise. We are pulled out of ourselves by the grasping, demanding, entrenching tentacles of a mad world.
There are few invitations to have a moment’s peace from this mental overstimulation. We collude in the universal restlessness. So unnaturally removed have we become from the deep rest of silence and peace that is at the core of our being that we ourselves add to the incessant stimulation as if it’s the only way to live.
It’s rare to see young people these days without wires coming out of their ears while their hands fiddle with the laughingly called ‘smart’ devices that have precisely the opposite effect on their users. People of all ages use television to babysit them through their feelings of loneliness and separation. This is not intrinsic, this is cultural mind control. It is not natural for us to cut ourselves off from our innate inner stillness, our ability to find peace and joy in our lives within our own being.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Creating a note of stillness in all the chaos returns our power. The simple act of pausing between a situation presenting itself to you and your reaction to it can change your life. This pause, this impasse is a fertile ground for Aha moments to germinate. Taking even one conscious breath elongates the time between stimulus and response. It opens up a gap and in that tiny gap, a new way of thinking and responding has space to pop up. To nurture Aha moments, we must consciously mind the gap!
Exercise
Sit comfortably, breathe, and release any notion that you know anything at all. Surrender the very need to know. Just give no energy to any thoughts in your mind and breathe into your heart. There is a dimension in you that is your wise place; it has all the answers but it’s voice is soft and it’s nudge is gentle. Give invite to this intuitive wisdom by dropping your attention down from the yapping ego mind and into a still, quiet place within you.
When we visit this place regularly, we create gaps in the attacking ego mind for something new and fresh to emerge through us. We start to feel guided, more in the flow of life. This experience expands as we develop increasing trust in the process and open up more and more gaps.
So, paradoxically, it is from a place of not knowing that we come to know ourselves as never before. In this meditative state we transcend the mind and offer up longer spaces for all kinds of transformative “Aha” moments to arise in the deeper dimensions of our consciousness.