Did you know the mind is noisy and busy, like a marketplace? It constantly produces noise, such as meaningless thoughts, worries, and anxieties.
Imagine stepping outside your mind and watching it from the outside. What do you see and hear?
You will be amazed to discover that it is like a marketplace. It is full of noise, movement, and action, like being in the hustle and bustle of a busy bazaar.
In the marketplace, people talk aloud and shout to attract people to their stalls. It is the same inside the mind. Many thoughts are coming and going, constantly trying to attract your attention and make you follow them. Thoughts occupy your mind constantly, hardly giving you any free moment.
Your mind is a bustling and noisy place. In this place, you are not free for a moment. Your attention is always drawn here and there.
Suppose you are with people who never stop talking, engaging your attention without a moment of rest. Can you think or plan anything while they are talking? They tire you and exhaust you, forcing you to keep your attention on what they say.
This is exactly how your thoughts behave and why you need to learn to impose silence on them. You need to calm your mind so it can rest and become peaceful.
Suppose you work in a noisy market. You are there every day. Sometimes, you are so busy that you ignore the noise, and sometimes you find it most disturbing.
Imagine going out of the market to a quiet place for a few minutes. You will then notice clearly the difference in the market and outside it.
It is the same with the mind. If you can make it quiet for a few minutes daily, you will notice how restless it is. You will want to calm it down and enjoy the quietness.
Leaving the Marketplace of Your Mind Means Inner Peace
You enjoy inner peace when the mind becomes silent, calm, and under your control. It is like stopping the winds that create high waves in the ocean.
It is the act of emptying your mind of unnecessary, restless, and disturbing thoughts and enjoying a sense of peace, calmness, and happiness.
Inner peace is not a state of passiveness and certainly does not make life dull. On the contrary, it makes you more conscious, alive, and happy. It is a state of inner strength that helps you live life more fully.
The experience of inner peace is like going on vacation. On vacation, you are away from the problems of daily life, and your mind becomes calm. If you train your mind, you can enjoy this vacation every day, whenever you need it.
In a state of inner peace, you get away from your thoughts, worries, and fears and enjoy happiness and freedom from thoughts. You take a break from your mind.
It would be great if you could have moments of peace, a mental vacation. It would be even greater if you could take longer periods of mental rest.
Don’t worry. While your mind is calm and peaceful, you will not be asleep or unconscious. While experiencing the kind of inner peace I am talking about, you will be completely alert, conscious, and focused. You will feel more alive than ever.
Bringing inner peace to your mind is like emptying your room of junk and unnecessary stuff and, therefore, having extra space and freedom. This is actually the subject of the article, ‘What Is Inner Peace?. It is like emptying your room of all unnecessary stuff’, which I recommend you to read.
How to Get out of the Noisy Marketplace of the Mind
How do you step out of the noisy marketplace of the mind?
In the teachings of nonduality and Vedanta, the mind is often likened to a noisy marketplace filled with the constant chatter of thoughts, desires, and sensations.
Ramana Maharshi, a revered sage in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, illuminated a path out of this tumult through the practice of self-inquiry. He encouraged seekers to trace every thought back to its root, which is the fundamental question: “Who am I?”
This method is not about engaging with the thoughts themselves but repeatedly turning the mind’s attention inward towards the ‘I-thought’ until it dissolves in the source from which it arose.
As one delves deeper, the habitual identification with thoughts weakens, and one begins to experience silence and stillness.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, another luminary in the realm of nonduality, proposes a radical and direct approach to transcend the mental marketplace by firmly establishing oneself in the awareness of ‘I Am’.
He teaches that prior to all thoughts and perceptions, there exists a pure sense of being, which is accessible to everyone as the simple awareness of existence or the feeling of ‘I am’.
By holding onto this sense of pure being and refusing to engage with the transient thoughts and emotions that pass, one can eventually realize one’s nature as beyond both the thinker and the thought. This practice of staying with the sense of ‘I Am’ gradually diminishes the mind’s dominance and reveals the unchanging reality.
Both paths these sages offer converge on the essential practice of disidentification from the mental chatter and re-identification with the underlying consciousness that pervades all experiences.
Through the inquiry into the source of the ‘I’ or abidance in the sense of ‘I Am’, the noisy marketplace of the mind begins to quieten.
