Create More Free Time with Silence

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. ~Mahatma Gandhi
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~William Penn





Our minds are constantly brimming with thoughts; we are always distracted with bombardments of messages, emails, cell phones; pull from different quarters will want our attention ~ and in this chaos, somewhere our peace of mind is gone. We are full of stress. We do not have sufficient time for all the activities we wish we could do.

The more resolutions we make about accomplishing things more we end up wasting our times and most of the times we accomplish less than earlier. We always wish we had more free time.

The truth is - we already have enough time; to do something meaningful or use to it in a more productive way. But hundreds of distractions which try to occupy our attention steal our attention, energy and time. Eventually we are so tired and stressed, that we do not have enough time to do something quietly. Observing silence is the solution to this problem.

Purposeful silence helps us to quieten out mind, introspect and we discover a lot about ourselves and the directions in which we are going. Silence detoxifies our mind. It removes the agitations of the mind which are created due to the constant thought patterns which occur throughout the day.

For thousands of years many spiritual people all over the world have observed silence as the toll to progress spiritually. Many of them have done so for years. Silence helps increase the spiritual powers.

Mahatma Gandhi used to observe silence on one day of the week. This time was used for introspection. Observing silence cultivates patience. Usually when we communicate with a person, we are always eager to speak out our thoughts. We do not have enough patience to listen. Silence encourages the listening habit since we develop more patience.

During silence we learn to observe things in a different manner.

Although maintaining silence for a whole day may not be practically possible for most of us, but we can do it every morning or at least once a week for few hours.

While observing silence, do not try to engage yourself in other activities like reading or watching television. Doing other activities will defeat the purpose of silence.

Since we are not speaking during the silence it is easier to observe ourselves. This time should be therefore used for self observation ~ which can be in the form of either thoughts or breathing pattern.

Observing the thought patterns for a long time will gradually calm down the mind, and the mind will become calmer. This helps in detoxification of the mind and you will feel more restful and de-stressed.

When we practice silence for sometime, you will start understanding how much time we spend on lot on unnecessary activities and you will discover the activities which are meaningful to us in the long run.

Gradually this become ingrained in us and we spend our time on activities which are aligned with our purpose, can easily weed out the activities which eat up our time. Soon, we would find ourselves having more free time for family or ourselves. We will be lot more relaxed and more productive.

Here is an exercise. Choose a time when you expect very less disturbance. Decide that you would spend next half an hour in silence and you can request this to your family not to disturb you. Start observing your breathing. You would have distractions, but those are ok. Bring back the focus on breathing again as soon as you observe.

Practice this for an week. Gradually the mind becomes calmer and then you start observing the time you spend on various activities. You would soon discover what is right for you and which are the activities which you need to eliminate.

Doing this would increase the amount of time you have for your family and yourself. Life will be better and there will be increased harmony.

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