Detaching yourself from distractions 

                         “I want happiness”

 “I want peace”

 We have to choose between both of these things but these definitions are very limited. They do not fully cover what you want and are not easy to express as well. Observing silence takes you in that direction. 

Observing silence is the name of the process. But the steps it goes through. I can make you familiar with them. And then you might find it enjoyable sometimes, people say it’s very hard to observe silence. It’s very hard. They want to do something in that period of silence. Time to rest, detach from distractions, and come to the present time. 

Before we understand how observing silence can help you detach yourself from distractions, we need to understand what noise is and how it distracts us. 

All around you, there’s so much noise that it takes over and distracts you. This noise doesn’t have to be noise in the form of distraction. Noise means the amount of information being perceived by you through all your senses- by looking at things, by listening to things, that may be pleasant or unpleasant, tasting things, smelling things, or touching things. 

If we look at one sensation, or one sense channel, for example, Eyes. We see so many pictures around all of us- those pictures are the real existence of the real physical things around you. You look at them, you see, you make judgments, and you come to the conclusion-  this is the white color or this is the black color or this is tall, this is small. 

You make judgments by seeing things. And it is natural to make those judgments – to make calculated decisions to walk around to look at things. 

Additionally, we watch many other pictures recorded on phones, and on TV- now, this is noise. This is extra, this overloads your sense channel, and your eyes get overloaded. 

As you see all the pictures, your eyes make a picture of them and store them. But then sometimes, maybe most of the time you do not make sense out of them. And now this is a distraction. You get filled up, your memory gets filled up with these extra downloads. Pictures of pictures by watching TV, by using your smartphone, or going to cinemas or movies- these are extra pictures that you saw through this sense channel, experienced them, and stored them. Now this is noise in you. When noise takes over, you can’t hear yourself. You can’t listen to yourself. Because it’s all noise. 

By observing silence, by closing your eyes, you’re shutting down one perception. You do not want to see more things now because you are trying to shake hands with yourself, meeting yourself, being with yourself. That is one part while observing silence. 

Now,  let’s talk about the second sense channel, or the sensation through the nose. This is a tool you sense with the sense of smell, you can smell safe, and familiar smells, and then make the right decisions. But then the environment around you also gives you extra smells. For example, today coffee doesn’t have its original smell anymore as it is overloaded with a lot of other things. 

Now this is an overload for the sense of smell. There are perfumes that are overloaded with the sense of smell. So this overload is again, a noise. It deprives you, it disconnects you from yourself. 

They talk about listening, you listen to the music, being given by nature. It’s a musical like my cat is meowing you to listen to it. These are natural sounds, you listen to the sound of air, the sound of oceans, the sound of silence. These are the natural sounds, your ears, they get into. But now you put in music, extra sensation, and now that is noise. That is an overload. We’ll see how this noise overload can be reduced by observing silence, which is coming in the way of you meeting yourself.

 

YouTube Channel Name: Dr. Alka Chopra Madan

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