Imagine the deepest rest you have ever felt. It was so deep and so easy. It was effortless. There was no straining. This is peace. Peace reigned for a while, and nothing was on your mind. Your mind was not supervising for once. Your mind was on vacation for a while and leaving you alone. Your mind was not haunting you. It was not repeating itself. It was giving you a break. It was letting you alone.
Your rapacious mind is supposed to get off your back. Your mind isn’t meant to toggle you back and forth. Your mind isn’t meant to jump up and down and give you warnings or even memories that take you down a shady lane.
Your mind took over your life and filled you with worries and things like that. Your mind simply made you think too much. It made you forage for more thoughts to top the ones you already had. Your mind raced hither and yon and forgot it wasn’t the big cheese. Your mind, well-meaning, of course, forgot that it was not meant to be the master of you and your heart. It forgot it was meant to serve you and leave your heart in peace. Your mind simply got so caught up in a thinking spree that it forgot its main mission. It simply forgot. It got caught up and forgot to look at the whole picture. The mind diverted itself from its course, the same way that you, when packing for a trip in haste, in your eagerness to get ready, you forgot to pack something important.
And so your mind races. It remembers all the non-essentials and forgets its main mission which is to save you worry and expense. Your mind is eager to serve you, yet it has mixed up the word serve with the word save.
Let Us express to the mind that its role is not to overtake you and wrest you away from the path of peace. As a server, your mind is more patient, quieter, gentler. The mind is not meant to yatata yatata so much. The mind is not meant to wear you out.
How do We calm the mind then? The mind is so powerful. How do We get it to rest and perhaps take frequent rests? As in all life, love your mind and ask it to play its music softly in the background. Pat your mind on its back and ask it to refrain from setting off alarms. Tell it that you will listen carefully to everything it says, and that it does not have to try so much to get your attention. Ask it to be calm, that you are responding to it and that you are responsible for your life and that you will take good care of yourself and your mind. Ask it to take a back seat for a while and give you peace. Ultimately, in peace, the mind will think better and will come to know itself that rest is good, and that when it warns you less, it will scare you less, and you will be able to listen to it better.
Tell your ruffled mind that it needs to slow down and make a truce with life. It is to sit with its feet up some times. It is to relax sometimes, to imagine itself lying on a beach, just taking in the sun, listening to the surf, to imagine itself people-watching and not saying a word, just lying there as life does its thing. The mind will notice the good effect its peace-giving gives you. From then on your mind will prompt you but not too much, not too little, but just right.