We live our lives against the background of a cacophony of noise, with jagged mechanical sounds continually assaulting our ears: the roar of cars, aeroplanes, and trains, the clanging and thudding of machinery, the noise of building and renovating, the chatter of radios and TVs in cars and houses, and pop music blaring from every conceivable place.
Our senses aren't designed to cope with this barrage of noise. We naturally find the sound of birds singing or of wind rushing through trees pleasing, but mechanical noise jars and grates. And since we live our lives against a background of mechanical noise it follows that there's always an undercurrent of agitation inside us, produced by the noise. This noise is certainly one of the reasons why modern life is so stressful as well. In modern life our senses are bombarded with massive amounts of external stimuli our fields of vision are always crowded with different (and constantly shifting) things, and our ears are bombarded with a bewildering variety of sounds, all of which clamour for our attention.
Inner Noise
But there is also a lot of noise inside us. Whenever our attention isn't occupied by something external, our minds are filled with ‘thought-chatter' - a stream of daydreams, memories, deliberations, worries, plans etc. which we have little control over. This 'inner noise' has as many bad effects as the mechanical noise outside us. It actually creates problems in our lives, when we mull over tiny inconveniences or uncertainties which seem to become important just because we're giving so much attention to them, and when we imagine all kinds of possible scenarios about future events instead of just taking them as they come. It means that we don't live in the present, because we're always either planning for and anticipating the future or remembering the past 'wandering about in times that do not belong to us and never thinking of the one that does' as Blaise Pascal wrote. In addition, it means we seldom give our full attention to our surroundings and to the activities of our lives. Our attention is always partly taken up by the thoughts in our minds, so that wherever we are and whatever we're doing we're never completely there.
It's probably possible to say that there's more of this 'inner noise' inside human beings than ever before. The hectic pace and the constant activity of our lives, the massive amount of external stimuli we're bombarded with, and the barrage of information which the mass media sends our way, have made our minds more restless and active. We've got to juggle dozens of different problems and concerns in our minds just to get by from day to day, and every new thing we see or every new piece of information which is sent our way is potentially the beginning of a whole new train of thought to occupy our minds.
The most serious consequence of both this inner and outer noise is that they separate us from what might be called the ground - or the essence - of our being. This is the pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-itself which remains when we're not actually conscious of anything. It's what remains when the activity of our senses and the activity of our minds cease. The sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the thoughts which run through our minds are like the images on a cinema screen, but our 'true self' is the cinema screen itself, which is still there even when there aren't any images being projected on to it.
The Power of Pure Consciousness
Experiencing this 'consciousness-in-itself' can have a massively therapeutic effect. It brings a sense of being firmly rooted in ourselves, of being truly who we are. We also have a sense of being truly where we are, realising that before we were only half-present, and everything we see around us seems intensely real and alive, as if our perceptions have become much more acute. But above all, we experience a profound sense of inner peace and natural happiness. As the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always held, the nature of consciousness-in-itself (which means the consciousness inside us and the consciousness which pervades the whole universe) is bliss. Getting into contact with the pure consciousness inside us enables us, therefore, to experience this bliss. Indeed, it could be said that it's only when we do this that we can experience true happiness. Usually what we think of as happiness is hedonistic or ego-based that is, based around pressing instinctive 'pleasure buttons' or around receiving attention and praise from others and increasing our self-esteem. But the kind of deep and rich happiness we experience when we're in touch with the ground or essence of our beings is a natural, spiritual happiness, which doesn't depend on anything external, and doesn't vanish as soon as the thing which produced it is taken away.
As a result of this it's essential for us, in the modern world, to go out of our way to cultivate silence. Circumstances may oblige us to live in cities, and our jobs may be stressful and demanding, but we're still free to remove ourselves from external stimuli and to try to quieten our minds by meditating, going out into the countryside, or just by sitting quietly in our rooms. We don't have to fill our free time with attention-absorbing distractions like TV and computer games, which take us even further away from ourselves. We should do the opposite: make sure there are some periods when our attention isn't absorbed, when we can rest in silence, and make contact with our true selves again.
Steve Taylor is a lecturer in psychology at Leeds Met University in the UK, and the author of a number of books on psychology and spirituality, including Waking From Sleep (described by Eckhart Tolle as 'one of the best books on spiritual awakening I have come across'). His website is stevenmtaylor.com.
