Comments for Watkins Publishing's Website
For this my first real blog post, I thought I would put something here that I've sent to Watkins Publishing for their website about the book of mine that they published entitled THE SECRET LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE: THE QUEST FOR THE SOUL OF SCIENCE.
These are comments about Chapter 3, entitled 'The Inner Universe of the Human Being: Mind Science'.
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In this age of computers, which hypnotise us more effectively than mere television ever did, it is useful to find a way to break trances. Too much information, anxiety, emotional turbulence, illness, bad food and sedentary isolation can make you fall into a strange vacuous state of mind. The addition of tantalising machines ensures that most of us stay in a state of hypnosis.
To break my own bad habits and patterns and to write this book, I lived for a time in a retreat centre where I had no access to any means of communication except the human voice, writing and books. Silence was palpable. Nature drew close. My mind relaxed. The repetitive songs and chatter I was used to hearing in my mind settled. I noticed the birds outside my window. Then came insights. I began to observe how the mind operates. Through meditating every day, I become aware of how I create habits and put myself into trances via repetitive thoughts – and how to get free of them.
Scattered as the disparate subjects I wanted to include in my book were, gradually they came together to form a shape. My aims were to:
identify what elements in life are pleasing to human beings
show how they are related to each other
indicate what fosters happiness
offer a bigger picture by surveying the positive things that individuals and groups are doing
suggest a higher foundation on which to build a better world.
As the Buddhists say, what we think today determines what our tomorrow is. Everything that happens comes from what we think. We make things happen according to the tenor and atmosphere of our thoughts, both individually and collectively.
Much of what I observed in my book about society and the zeitgeist of our time is becoming more obvious these days. The threats and solutions I surveyed are now more prominent than ever in the world. More potential answers to problems have been put forward since its publication, but also ever burgeoning manmade crises are developing every day.
Organisations like The Mind and Life Institute and David Lynch Foundation are making great strides in the dissemination of information about meditation and contemplative practices in the hope that people with calm minds will come forward to guide humanity to a better situation. Daily ten-minute sessions for silence or meditation have been introduced to good effect in schools. Even that small effort has led to a lessening of aggressive behaviour and violence and to higher exam results.
Imagine what kinds of people would inhabit this planet – imagine what good they would do – if they learned to calm the emotions that inhibit their minds. The reasons for everything we make happen in the world start in the mind. How much good could each of us do if we had greater awareness and understanding of ourselves?
The human mind can be a mere mechanical, reactive agent, but it can be so much more. By examining the way it operates, you can learn to make it work for you instead of letting it lead you around by the nose and into aimless tangential meanderings. You can find your way out of habits of mind that push you this way and that – and learn to steer your ship to the place you want to go.
