Remez Sasson Blog » Inner Peace

How to Find Peace of Mind

Remez Sasson — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:41:30 +0000

Everyone desires peace of mind, but the big question is how to find peace of mind, when there are problems and difficulties, when there are worries and anxiety, and when you are busy all the time with work, study and chores? When you are so busy all day long, how and when can you find peace of mind?

How to find peace of mind when your mind is constantly occupied with thoughts, taking you from one thought to another, from one worry to another?

You can find peace of mind, but this requires that you do something about it.

What is peace of mind? It is a state of inner peace, when your mind is calm, like the surface of a lake on a summer day. It is a state when you are not harassed by thoughts and worries, and you can avoid the thoughts you don’t want to think. It is a state of freedom from worry and anxiety, and from restless, negative and disturbing thoughts.

In this state there is calmness and happiness, better concentration, inner strength, and a heightened state of awareness. Your external life might not necessarily change, but your inner life, your mind, and your attitude would change.

How to find peace of mind?

Everything that can quiet your mind will help you find peace of mind:

Spend some time every now and then in nature, in a forest or at the beach.
Take a walk, where you can be alone.
Get enough sleep at night.
When watching TV, prefer comedies and programs that make you laugh, feel happy or inspire you.
Read inspiring quotes every day.
Be more forgiving, and don’t harbor grudges or resentments.
Don’t blame or criticize other people.
Don’t postpone doing things that you have to, and which don’t like doing. Do them, and take them out of your mind.
Be aware of your thoughts and refuse dwelling on negative thoughts or worries. Don’t fight them, but just try to express lack of interest in them.
When feeling worried or tense, take a few deep breaths.
Seek the company of peaceful people.

These are just a few simple tips to show you how to find peace of mind. All these tips can bring some temporary inner peace when you need it, but if you wish to find a deeper and more constant and stable state of inner peace you will need to:

Practice concentration exercises.
Practice meditation, any form of meditation.
Develop some degree of inner detachment (it has nothing to do with being indifferent), so that you don’t get swayed or carried away by events, people, or what people say or do.

Get a complete course, with guidance and exercises on how to find peace of mind.

Living in a Noisy Environment

Remez Sasson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:19:22 +0000

Someone has emailed me the following question:
“I understand it is important to own your mind, but what if you live next door to really noisy people who drive you crazy and make you lose you sleep? I cannot help thinking that the people who write these books have big detached houses so they already have a peaceful environment at least.”

It is not always possible to be in control of your environment, and therefore it is not always possible to live in a peaceful environment, but you can teach yourself to ignore noise and distractions. This is possible, and I know this from personal experience. On the plus side, when you learn to meditate or calm down your mind in an environment that is not quiet, and ignore the noise and distractions, you actually develop your inner strength in the process, and gain more inner power, will power self discipline and a sense of satisfaction.

There are several things you can do when you live in a noisy environment:

1. You can go and speak with your neighbors, and ask them to be a little quiet. If you think they will not listen to you, then visualize yourself speaking with them politely, but with confidence and authority, asking them to be quiet. See them being polite and nice, and telling you they are going to be less noisy. Do so for a few days, and then go and speak with them. This visualization will make you more confident and your neighbors will be more willing to accept what you are asking.

2. You may also visualize yourself living in a quiet and happy environment. Do so with the belief that this can happen. Sooner or later something will change, either your neighbors get less noisy, they will move, you will move, or the noise will stop bothering you.

3. If possible, consider moving to quieter surroundings.

4. While it is true that a quiet environment is important for attaining inner peace, one can attain inner peace even in a noisy environment. Not everyone can afford to own a big detached house, or leave everything behind, and go and live in an ashram or a monastery. With the proper mental attitude, ambition, dedication and self discipline, one can attain inner peace wherever he or she happens to be, in a quiet environment or a noisy environment.

A certain spiritual teacher has said that a beginner in meditation is easily distracted even by the noise of a needle falling on the ground, but when well trained, one can meditate in the middle of the noisy market, without being distracted.

You can choose to let noise distract and annoy you, but you can also choose to train yourself to stay patient and calm, and to learn to ignore noises when you are not in a position to remove them.

Peace of Mind not the Privilege of Special People

Remez Sasson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:09:19 +0000

Pupil: Can an average person, like me, who is constantly harassed by all kinds of problems and worries, attain peace of mind?

Teacher: Of course! Peace of mind is not the privilege of special people. On the contrary, any person who is earnest about attaining inner peace, and is willing to devote the necessary time and energy, can learn to reduce the restlessness of his mind and attain at least some measure of inner peace. Every earnest step taken in this direction, even the smallest one, will take you closer to inner peace.

Everyone desires freedom from worries, unpleasant thoughts, anxiety and the hustle and bustle of daily life, but too often, the solutions are sought through various externals activities that might bring some temporary peace. Few know that true peace of mind comes from within, and is not dependent on outer conditions and situations.

Excerpt from Peace of Mind in Daily Life

Worry is a State of Mind

Remez Sasson — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:27:43 +0000

You cannot always change your environment and the events of your life, but you can learn to change your attitude toward them. A change of attitude changes the way they affect you. It is always advisable to learn, and to practise changing the attitude to a more positive one, and also learn to calm down the mind, but this needs to be done on a regular basis, and not only at the time when there are worries and problems. One needs to train himself, so he stays positive and calm in difficult times.

Suppose somebody who doesn’t know to swim falls into the water, and needs immediate help. You cannot start teaching him how to swim, but if he learned to swim before this event, there would have been no problem. It is the same with being free from anxiety and worry. When in the midst of a difficult time you can use some first aid to keep your head above the water, but to remain peaceful and calm, unaffected by problems and worries, you should have trained before that.

Here are a few simple suggestions:

- Engage in something interesting.

- When worried, try to be busy.

- Never lose hope.

- Analyze your worries: will they help you or waste your time and energy? Do you want them? What are they? They are just thoughts. If you keep thinking them they will grow and get stronger. Do you want that? No matter how difficult it might be, try to focus on solutions, not on problems.

- Visualize yourself free from the problem causing the worry, for example, visualize having a job or money at the bank.

Worry is a state of mind. So is happiness and peace, what do you choose?

Here are a few articles that might help:

www.successconsciousness.com/overcoming_anxiety.htm
www.successconsciousness.com/stress_management_tips
www.successconsciousness.com/peace_mind.htm
www.successconsciousness.com/blog/concentration-mind-power/how-to-overcome-disturbing-and-distracting-thoughts/

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Do You Need All Your Thoughts?

Remez Sasson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:12:22 +0000

- Are you aware of the thoughts that pass through your mind?

- Do you remember what you thought a few minutes ago?

- Do you know how many thoughts pass through your mind in 24 hours?

- Do all your thoughts originate in your mind? Are they your own thoughts or other people’s thoughts that you think are your own thoughts?

Thinking is very useful in every area of life, but people go too far with it. It has turned into some sort of slavery. Instead of thinking on what you want, when you want, you think all the time, every hour of the day. Every word you hear, everything you see brings thoughts to your mind. The mind is always busy, most of the time thinking meaningless thoughts as a reaction to external stimulus.

People have lost the ability to stop thinking when they don’t need to. Thoughts come and go whenever they want, distracting the attention, spoiling concentration, and keeping the mind in a state of endless mental activity. It is like a machine that is never switched off.

Many of these thoughts are negative, causing anxiety and worries, wasting one’s time and energy.

Instead of using thoughts to help in your affairs, you are being used by thoughts. They take your time and they take your energy, without giving you anything in return. They constantly produce noise in your mind, preventing you from experiencing real inner peace.

Are you able to stop thinking negative thoughts? Are you able to stop all those thoughts that keep moving your attention from one thing to another? Do you keep worrying, and do you expect the worst? Does your mind keep busy with what someone said about you, and do you keep thinking how life is bad for you, because someone at work got promoted, and you were not?

Do you keep thinking about other matters while studying, talking with someone, driving your car or travelling by bus or train?

You deserve to give your mind some rest, at least for some moments during the day. You can learn to resist the temptation to be always thinking. When thoughts stop for a little while you don’t lose consciousness! You become more conscious and more aware. You become more alive. The mind is afraid to stop thinking, afraid of what will happen if it becomes quiet. There is great peace and happiness inside, but constant thinking hides it, like the clouds hide the sun.

When the number of thoughts go down, there is no vacuum, instead of the mind’s activity, there will be inner peace and inner happiness, which can be experienced even in the midst of activity, at work, at home and everywhere else.

Here is a basic exercise that will help you learn about the process of thinking:

Stop what you are doing, and for ten minutes watch your thoughts. You don’t have to be alone in practice this exercise. you can practice it at your work, in a park, at home, or wherever you happen to be, but not while driving.

For this exercise you don’t need to relax your body, sit in a certain pose or breath in a special way.

All you have to do is try to be aware of your thoughts, and find out where they came and how. Don’t analyze them, just watch the process, how they arise in your mind, and how they change or are being replaced by other thoughts. You will be surprised to discover that many of them arise as a reaction to events, environment or other people’s words or thoughts. Some of these thoughts that arise automatically in certain circumstances, triggered by certain people, events or other external stimuli.

After going through this exercise, I want to ask you, are you free? Is your mind free? Do you experience inner peace or a state of endless thinking, often unaware of what you think? Do you choose your thoughts?

I invite you to comment and write what you think, here at the blog, or at the forum.

Learn how to focus your mind

Learn how to gain inner peace