How to Handle Inner Noise

“Once there is a distance between you and your thought process, it does not matter what you are thinking at all.”

—Sadhguru

Question: With increased silence outside, inside noises are becoming very noisy. Could you shed some light on the inner vibrations and the inner sound?

Sadhguru: Your interiority has not become noisy. It has never been noisy. There is no such thing as noise in that region. It is just that because you are not busy, you are getting preoccupied. Most people normally think that they are busy, but if you look at their lives, sixty percent of the time they are just preoccupied with something. This is like chewing the cud. You are still chewing on what happened yesterday. Cows, goats and sheep have this facility that after a few hours of eating something, they can bring it back and chew the cud. Such a facility was not given to you in your body so you have created one in your mind! This is an evolutionary problem.

Stop Chewing the Cud

In Southern Indian Mysticism and Yoga, when we see someone who is enjoying something because of their past activity but is doing something totally different now, and if they do not understand that they are just enjoying past benefits and it may run out anytime, we say "Ayyo, pazhaya sadham."Pazhaya sadham means “old rice.” In terms of energy and strength, what we ate yesterday is still working in our body. Similarly, we may still be benefiting from what we did yesterday, ten years ago or a lifetime ago. But if you are not doing something right now to enhance this, this will run out. Old food will rot after some time. What was very wonderful will become very nasty.

Many so-called successful people in the world go through this at different stages in their life. They enjoy the results of karmas of the past, they think everything is fantastic and they live wantonly. One day, it suddenly hits them – not necessarily from outside, most of the time it is from within. Their own psychological structure and body goes into such a relapse and they find it hard to believe that this happened to them. This is because you are living on old food. It is very important that you cook fresh food every day. This is why present karma is very important.

In your interiority, there is no noise, vibration or sound. It is all in your head. This is because you are chewing the old cud. If you were busy with some activity, you would forget some of the things that are happening in your head. But once your hands are free, then you will see that the mind will go on. Do not try to stop it because you cannot stop it. The only way is to distance yourself from it.

Distancing Yourself From The Mind

There are many methods to distance yourself from the mind. If you are doing Shambhavi or Shoonya, those are powerful processes. Otherwise you can do Isha Kriya. If you do not know any of these, there is one simple thing that you can do right now. Just see that in this vast existence of which we neither know the beginning or the end, this solar system is a tiny speck. In that tiny speck, planet Earth is a micro-speck. You are a tiny little creature on that micro-speck. But you sit here on this little mud ball of a planet and think that you are the center of the universe! This is a stupid idea. From this stupid idea, many other stupid ideas have come, which are in social terms, considered intelligence. But just look at your thoughts in the context of the larger cosmos. Now that the virus is threatening your life, in the context of your mortality, see that the things you think about, the things that you think are important, see that every one of them is stupid.

If you see that your thought and emotion is utterly stupid, you will naturally create a distance. The problem is that you think it is smart but when it troubles you, you want a distance from it. It does not work like that. Whatever you think is smart will stick onto you like a badge. It will not leave you. The moment you think you are smart, your thoughts cannot leave you. If you are a very smart guy, you cannot close your eyes and sit. When you know that you are a bloody fool, you can close your eyes and sit. The difference between an intelligent person and an idiot is that an intelligent person knows that he is an idiot, but an idiot does not know that he is one. That is why he is an idiot.

In terms of life, in terms of existence, you really are nothing. Socially, you may be something. Among fools, fools will shine. That does not mean anything as a life. As a life, this little virus can knock you off tomorrow. Whatever great, smart thoughts we may have do not mean a thing. If you understand this, naturally a distance will arise between you and your thought process. Once there is a distance between you and your thought process, it does not matter what you are thinking at all.

Editor’s Note: Want to learn more about the mechanics of the mind? In this YouTube Video Sadhguru unravels the four fundamental parts of the mind.