This Week’s Quotation:
Your tranquil mind has the power to bring peace and calm to the emotional waters of your creative field—to your own emotions and to the emotional waters of the people in your world.
Becoming a Sun p. 56
A Tranquil Mind
Author, Becoming a Sun
Like all of us, I am a witness with a front-row seat to the human experience. I have taught courses and facilitated workshops around the world on emotional and spiritual intelligence. I have coached people to gain greater insight and mastery. But most importantly, like anyone, I am witness to my own life experience. Here is what I notice.
The muddle. It is so easy for us, as human beings, to find ourselves in a blur of experience. No up or down. No understanding of what is causing it. Unable to explain what it is that we are thinking or feeling. Perhaps feeling awful but unable to find a way out. Or feeling good, but not knowing quite why or how to repeat it.
If you were a mechanic working on a car that wouldn’t run, you wouldn’t just hope that the whole vehicle magically started to work right. And you wouldn’t just start working on random parts of the car. You would first analyze the situation. And then make the repairs indicated by the analysis.
Are we so different?
The word analysis comes from an ancient word that means to loosen, divide, or cut apart. It has to do with understanding the parts of something that make up the whole. True self-analysis is a part of being a witness to our human experience and letting it become as creative as possible.
I’m not talking about psychoanalysis as it is generally practiced. I don’t believe in psychoanalyzing ourselves. I’m talking about something much more basic than that.
The reality is that there are fundamental building blocks of the human experience. You do not have to read a textbook to understand them. Just observe yourself. You think. You feel emotion. You are definitely having a physical experience. And then there’s something it is not so easy to observe—your spirit. This is the dimension of you that experiences joy and intention. It is the throne upon which you sit as a sovereign soul.
All these parts of us are interacting dynamically all the time, just as surely as the engine, clutch, and driveshaft of your car.
The excerpt from my book I quoted above names the positive influence on the emotional body brought by a tranquil mind. Tranquility of mind is like a strong muscle in the body. Just as many people do not build their muscles properly, many people have not discovered the potential power that their thoughts have to bring peace to their hearts. So their mind becomes erratic, not knowing what to do to make their heart happy.
Here’s what I’ve discovered. As a sovereign soul who has a mind, we can take hold of our mind. We can then use our mind to exercise this muscle of tranquility that brings peace to the heart. And if we can do that for ourselves, we can do it for another person.
The blur ends. We have found a causative element in our human experience—a tranquil mind guided by the sovereign soul we are.
So give it a go. See if you can identify this mental muscle—tranquility. Then exercise it. Build it. Let it bring peace to your heart.
What does it mean to become a sun?
Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.
6 Responses
Ahhhh Tranquility – sometimes is it more difficult to remember that we have the capacity to change our mind – not about Doing something or not doing it – but about choosing how we will feel, that what is best for us is inner peace – and better said – Tranquility.
The mind has been described as “the bright and morning star, and functions as a wonderful bringer of peace and a guiding light when it’s properly centered in the truth of who I am: the Sun of Being.
So true! Developing a tranquil state requires the muscle of understanding, courage and exercising the ability to stay still and focused in mind and then the heart is held in tranquility.. The mind has a tendency to lead into chaotic imaginations.. When the mind comes into tranquility of heart, the mind becomes a vehicle in exemplifying the joining, No matter the circumstance.. The only way to do this is to do it, moment by moment, day by day. This is an exorcise of enduring practice. Thank you .
Thank you David, for this post on the tranquil mind. It would be wonderful if we were all taught to self-analyze our minds when we were young. I did start doing that when I was around 30 years old, and it’s a long process when you are struggling with life and death. Yes, observe your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, But what, who is observing these phenomena? You say the spirit is not so easy to observe. I would say from my experience that the spirit is that which is observing and cannot observe itself. I, As spirit, a sun, a being of intense love and light, I am able to witness it all, whether it is calm or chaotic. But if the mind and the body are calm, it makes this life more joyful and wonderful. I have witnessed much chaos within this short bodily lifespan and I thank you with much gratitude for giving people the opportunity to find peace here.
Thank you David.
With you in tranquility.
Love and blessings, Nadeja
Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences related to the tranquil mind is is a subject very dear to my heart, not only for the mental and physical health it brings – but the innate connection to the divine source of spiritual peace, intimacy with All and bliss.
A mindful yogic state is of the body, memory and its intellect, as the whole body has more remembering capacity than the mind can ever recover. The physical self expresses it self cellularly and genetically too and so the whole process of the alignment of self is vital. When our mind is tranquil we have the ability to heal in levels deeper than any kind of medication, when our mind is still the physical function of self is more fluid and whole. In the mindless state we can achieve wonders, inventive and be incredibly creative, actively doing one thing at a time brings the whole being into a place of delicious refreshment nothing can replicate it. I too have taught this way to be for many, many years and seeing the state of oneness that comes into each person after allowing the tranquil state to enfold them is the best face lift I have every seen in my life. People appear reborn into themselves.
If only we were more mindful to stay in this state blissful of tranquility we would all be less actively stimulated by the bombardment of negative energy, also less absorbent to it too and less active in reactive zone.
I’ve never experienced any kind of hard core drugs – never even been attracted to trying them either and I often wonder if those that take them have ever tried to attempt a self reliance on meditation to actively achieve the ‘same’ stimulus. A tranquil mind isn’t about getting high, its becoming still, meek, released, transcended, smooth and naturally realigned. Also to achieve a tranquil mind its almost like training to become an athlete the practise is a discipline which has to be activated by the ‘user’, the owner of the body, mind and soul. Tranquility for me is the achievement of this, I am moving with ease, my whole being is fluid and strong, I am letting go of All and Everything and yet I am a Great part of it All too, I am becoming One with myself and the All, I am free of any ill and so I can release into being in Tranquil observance of this moment as it unfolds before me with Love.
A subject close to my heart which I hope everyone can achieve through honour, dedication, self love and supreme patience to the self.