Ego: Green light. Go. Cross the street.
What happens when this same mind, that tells us when to cross the street and what to eat, falls silent? Do we cease to function?
Well, first of all “we” can never, ever cease to function. If we still have a shred of that thought around, we should drop back and let go of that one.
Yes, I’m going to remove my mask one day and reveal the One who wears all masks. But “I” did not cease to exist. I merely … got bigger, you might say. (Excuse me. I’m laughing.)
So we’re never going to cease to function. This body will but “I” will step out of it and give it not another thought. Any more than I think about my jacket after I put it in the trunk of the car. (1)
Leaving that aside, when my mind fell silent in June-July 2021, I functioned entirely normally and naturally. When I felt hungry, I got up, went to the fridge and selected what I wanted to eat. When I was tired, I went to sleep.
All activities were the same; there was just no incessant discussion of every aspect of things. There was no bleeding off of energies because I was carrying on several internal discussions at once. There was no confusion, divided loyalties, competing agendas. I was no longer a house divided against itself.
I think the presence of silence and stillness is somehow a portal … or opens a portal; I’m guessing this. It starts other events in motion.
For sure it allows the experiencing of divine qualities or states like love and peace. That alone is wonderful enough. But it also engenders clarity. That must be obvious just considering that the cacophony of inner voices has subsided.
But more comes into life in the presence of stillness and silence.
The cacophony is to a large measure the ego speaking, the remembered commanding voices (parents, siblings, teachers, etc.) with all their “shoulds,” my own inner, running commentary on life, music, lines from movies, etc., etc. I can be a travelling ten-piece band.
I haven’t quite taken up all ten pieces again. I’m definitely quieter and more often still than I was.
So the answer is no. We’re not hampered in what we do by a still and silent mind. Everything we normally do continues, just without eternal, infernal discussion. And things that could not arise before now have the space to arise – like the divine states.
I’m a happy customer, reading my Book of Nothing on the bus and loving myself, with a lot of loving left over to share with anyone else.
Footnotes
(1) Somehow the recognition that my body is not me results in an immediate cessation of interest in it. There is no loyalty in self-serving identifications – my car, my house, my body. Once they cease to serve, I go with what remains that is me.
I discovered this on an out-of-body experience. The minute I realized I was not my body, my interest in it went way down. It didn’t disappear completely. Not saying that. But my defense-alert level related to my body went way down.
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Desirelessness and the Still Mind 3