The Internal Dialogues of Our Minds

Khrietuonyü Noudi

It is said that Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment after meditating under a peepal tree for 49 days. He sat alone under this tree and meditated because he was intrigued and baffled but most of all saddened by many phenomena of life. Buddha was greatly anguished after realizing that everybody grows old and ultimately dies and that the world is full of suffering and misery. To find answers to these queries, Buddha set out from the comfort of his home. 

By sheer power of his meditation, it is said Buddha attained enlightenment. In this context, enlightenment would mean true knowledge or truth. It is common knowledge that Buddha is considered to be one of the wisest men that ever lived. He lived some 600 years before the birth of Christ. The question is “can someone really attain enlightenment by sheer meditation?” 

It is said that the human brain can process up to 11 million bits of information in a second. But our conscious minds can handle only 40 to 50 bits of information a second. 

After Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and about to start his earthly ministry, He was led into the wilderness by the spirit for 40 days. During this time He was full of the spirit. In other words he was fully lost in meditation. Probably Jesus neither slept nor ate during these 40 days as his mind and heart were full of the words and spirit of God.

Yes, we have all been apprised of the power of meditation and the need to meditate. It is also said that “prayer is you talking to God or the universe and meditation is God or the universe talking to you”. Most successful people also say that apart from physical exercise and a nourishing breakfast in the morning, we should include meditation as an inevitable morning ritual if we wish to succeed or wish our day to be productive. 

As far as my life is concerned, meditation has a very deep meaning because everything which I have learnt and are now parts of my life’s philosophy, I have learnt through meditation. Today we truly live in the age of information technology and wherever we may be we are bombarded by information. And it seems like we are surrounded by noises, voices, opinions and narratives everywhere. So unless we have the skill to filter these information we can easily get carried away and lose our focus. So we all need that space where we can ponder over all these and also about life’s greatest questions so that we can come to our own logical conclusion and live our lives accordingly.  
There is a saying, “silence is full of answers”. In a verbal argument or debate, we usually consider the person who is able to speak the most to be the winner. And the person who runs out of words or does not have much to say or chooses to be silent is usually considered to be the loser. Yes, outwardly, that may be the case. But in reality, the one who chose to be quiet may also have a rich internal dialogue going on because silence is always full of answers. And yes, choosing to be silent in tense situations can save us from a lot of troubles and heartaches.       

Whether we realize it or not, an internal dialogue is always going on in our minds. And it is these internal dialogues which determine the direction of our steps. No, we may not verbalize these internal dialogues with our mouths and so nobody may be aware of what is going on in our minds and hearts but these dialogues are extremely important as they ultimately determine our destiny and our fate. 

How do you perceive yourself or how do you perceive your environment? What do you think about the so-called great knowledge, philosophies and wisdom that have stood the test of times and are now staring at us in our face? 

It is said that a person’s attitude will determine his altitude. That means how high you will go up in life has a direct correlation with what’s going on in your mind. You may have great talents and great opportunities in front of you but if your mind is not disciplined enough, you may miss most of your glories. 

In the Holy Scripture also, it is said “be still and know that I am God”. This means that we may fail to realize the power and glory of God if we do not learn to remain still sometimes. Maybe this is why it is also said that “you can be in the right place at the right time but you can still miss your miracle if you are in the wrong frame of mind”. This adage again reminds us that no matter what the circumstances or environment around us, what is important is the internal dialogue going on in our minds. The crippled man at the pool of Bethesda almost missed his miracle because though he was in the right place at the right time, his frame of mind (the internal dialogues of his mind) was not very much in tune.       

I have a strange habit of talking to myself whenever I am alone. I start to talk to myself when I start verbalizing whatever is going on in my mind. Whenever others see me murmuring or talking to myself, they find it very odd or even creepy. Even myself, for many years I tried to get rid of this very unusual habit because I felt that it was abnormal and repulsive. 


But after doing my own research in this field through the internet and by reading books on human psychology and behavior, I have now come to learn that there is nothing wrong with a man talking to himself in solitude because he is just verbalizing his inner thoughts or the internal dialogues going on in his mind. In fact, psychologists and experts in this field even say that we should learn to talk to ourselves more often because this habit has many unrecognized benefits. Verbalizing the internal dialogues of our minds can make us more expressive, enhance our communication skills, enrich our vocabulary and can even make us more confident, dominating and persuasive.

Yes, studies have even found out that intelligent and brilliant people have this habit of talking to themselves because their mind in always at work and they are always full of ideas and most of the times (especially when they are on their own) they are always envisioning and visualizing things. And most of the times they are even successful in converting these visions and make-beliefs into reality. It is akin to a child or a toddler talking or smiling to himself. Why does a child talk or smile to himself? It’s because his imagination is at work. And as Albert Einstein rightly said, “imagination is more powerful than knowledge”.   

          
As long as one is alive, his internal dialogue is always going on unless he is asleep. This means as long as you are conscious, your internal dialogue is going on. And what your internal dialogue is telling you is actually far more important than any other dialogues around you. As is rightly said, you are what you say about yourself and not what others say about you. 

Our world is full of lies, deceit, superficiality, fanfare, double-standard and hypocrisy. So it is pertinent that we recognize all these and stay true to ourselves. We should believe what the scripture says about us. It says that we are created in the image of God and that we are precious and priceless and that God knows everything about us and that nothing goes unnoticed and whatever good deed we do in His name will be richly rewarded. If we can not only believe these truths but if our internal dialogues can constantly remind us of these, then certainly we will feel nourished, enlightened and encouraged to take great steps for the Lord each day.

So, as we wind up our festivities and step into a New Year, it will be worthwhile for all to ponder over the internal dialogues of our minds. The world is full of ideas, narratives and philosophies some of which have come down to us from time immemorial. The world still continues to search for new knowledge, new philosophies and new ideas. As our world is an evolving one, we should get ourselves acquainted with all these. But ultimately it is what the ongoing internal dialogues of our mind tell us that will determine our fate and destiny. So we should be wary in this age of information technology and be able to separate the permanent from the temporary, the truth from the lies, the extraordinary from the ordinary, the worthy from the unworthy and the good from the evil.     
 



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