I don’t know if you have noticed, but we humans really like to talk. No wonder most of our daily interactions with other people are almost purely verbal — we crave it. Speaking about our experiences makes us feel more alive, as though by sharing our thoughts with another we ensure that what we are saying actually happened. In this way, we can endlessly speak about almost anything that concerns us, and if our companion is lucky — we might just ask about them as well.

As speaking tends to be a social activity, naturally we would think that we no longer do it while being in private, but that is actually not the case. In reality, most of us continue speaking even when we are alone, we simply do it quietly, through the means of thinking or writing.

Thinking, writing and speaking are all expressions of the same movement, a movement of thought. This movement, if not modulated, can take up the majority of our waking time, tangling us in a variety of words, ideas, projections and symbols. Is there something wrong with that? Not at all, as long as it does not become compulsory and we can stop it whenever we please. If it starts bothering us outside of reasonableness, we know that our memory and imagination have spun out of conscious control. As said by Jagadish Vasudev:

“When your memory, experience, and imagination are all mixed up, then you are One Big Mess.”

And we don’t want to be Big Messes, do we? Thus, we ought to learn how to observe our process of thinking instead of getting continuously caught in it.

Let’s take for example a lovely Friday afternoon sitting on a beach with the sun shining warmly and the waves hitting the coast as though simply to delight our ears. Suddenly, a thought might enter our mind. A memory about what happened yesterday or an anxiety-provoking thought of what might happen tomorrow. The circumstance of the beach hasn’t changed, but our experience of it has. Actually, we are no longer experiencing the beach, the sun and the waves. Instead, we are reexperiencing our memories and imagining possible futures.

Again, there’s no problem with that as long as we can say enough is enough and put all of that aside, meaning, that we are not caught up in a compulsion. But, if we can’t do that, we ought to be conscious enough to understand that something is bothering us and start paying attention to it. What is this feeling, this sensation within my skin? Am I anxious, worried, excited? What’s the cause of this sudden change in my experience? Thinking might help navigate our attention, yet only choiceless observation can aid in identifying the turmoil’s origin. When we have spotted the perpetrator of our formerly quiet afternoon, we can put it at rest by paying adequate awareness that it deserves, returning to the beach, the sun, and the waves. As noted by the aforementioned Indian yogi:

“People are not suffering life. They are suffering the two most fantastic faculties that human beings alone have — a vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination.”

Thoughts, memories, and our imagination are like toys — we enjoy playing with them endlessly, but if they start getting in the way of our daily, sensible, and responsible existence, we should know when to put them aside and come back to the direct experience of living. Only here we can find something new instead of reliving the old. Only here the world opens up to us, hinting at what might be beneath the surface. Only here, does meditation start.

It all begins with listening: listening with our ears, our eyes, and all the five senses. Listening to our thoughts, to the clouds, and the rumbling of thunder. Listening to the construction workers repairing your house, the expressions on your loved one’s face, and the sensations residing in your body.

“Learning to listen is the essence of intelligent living,” says Jagadish Vasudev

Thus, let’s face what’s happening within us with the same respect as observing what’s taking place in our external bodies — the world itself. With adequate attention, we can make it blossom.

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