“A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet.”

– Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Insight is seeing something new that had never occurred to you before. It’s the ‘ahas’ that tend to appear when our minds settle down and become quiet.

You could say: Insight occurs naturally in an empty, quiet, reflective and receptive state of mind.

Insight occurs naturally in an empty, quiet, reflective and receptive state of mind. Click To Tweet

One of my greatest joys is that I get to have lots of conversations during the week, with people from all walks of life, who are wanting to go beyond the limiting stories and internal chatter that inhibits their natural joy, confidence and wellbeing.

A couple weeks ago, a client asked me a great question and I thought I’d share with you a little bit of how that conversation went:

CLIENT: “If insight and new thoughts arise naturally when our minds are clear and quiet…then how do I clear out and quiet my mind? I mean, I meditate and experience a quiet mind when I do, but it only happens when I meditate. How do I access the clear and quiet mind you’re talking about? When you talk about it, it sounds like it’s always present and not just when I’m meditating.”

ME: “That’s correct. There’s a big difference between the act of meditation and the meditative state. One is something you do. The other is your natural state when you’re not so fixated with the contents of your thinking.

“You see, the present moment is all there is. It’s always fresh and clear, like a blank canvas. Collectively, most of us haven’t clearly seen how we’re constantly painting on this canvas with our memories and imagination. You could say, most of us are not really with life – we’re with our thoughts. We’re hallucinating most of the day.

“When we’re fixated on our thinking, there is no room or space to listen to the wisdom that is being broadcasted 24/7 from a much deeper Intelligence within. We’re just listening to the noise of our personal thoughts, which is to say, we’re just listening to WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW.”

CLIENT: “So what do I do?”

ME: “It’s not about doing, it’s about noticing and realizing that you are superimposing a narrative on the present moment. Life tends to take the form and limitation of that narrative. Without it, well…you tell me.”

CLIENT:  (After a reflective moment) “Without it, it’s like my mind goes blank. It gets empty.”

ME: “Right. You see, just by seeing and realizing that you are constantly recalling, recreating and re-experiencing a narrative being told by thought, something else gets illuminated. You could say that when we recognize the transient superimposition of thought on the present moment, the space in which the thought appears and disappears comes into view.

“When this vast, boundless, aware space comes into view, your stories instantaneously begins to dissolve into the freshness of the present moment. And you see life anew. You’re no longer coming from memory. You see with new eyes and recognize that you don’t really know anything outside of what your thoughts tell you.

“This is, essentially, stepping into the NOT-KNOWING, into your INNOCENCE, into what the Taoists call ‘the fertile void’ and into what we’re calling UNIVERSAL MIND. It’s thinking without thinking. It’s letting wisdom take over.

“When you step into the NOT-KNOWING, and don’t interfere by thinking that you should be the one that knows or the one that controls, which is just going back to WHAT YOU THINK YOU ALREADY KNOW, the mind will return to its timeless, quiet, receptive and creative nature.

“This is very natural. For most of us, this occurs when we’re walking out in nature, watching the sunset, taking a shower, or drinking our cup of coffee in the morning.

“The key is to realize that a quiet and clear mind is our natural state when we’re not so busy superimposing a story, that is, projecting WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW, into the ever-present, new-ness of NOW. Then, your mind gets naturally quiet, present and available for something that has never occurred to you before.”

A quiet, clear mind is our natural state. Click To Tweet