The Void
Where does it come from? The void, the silence, the emptiness.
When we attempt to clear our mind, usually the act of clearing our mind only leads to more thoughts.
Have you observed the following at times? Usually we stay on one thought until another one takes over, leaving very little unused space. The spaces between our thoughts are brief, and seldom does anyone wonder what it would be like to have fewer thoughts, or what we’d find in the void between them. But the paradox is obvious.
Rather than expanding that space between, we move on to more thoughts. So why should we concern ourselves with entering the elusive gap?
Because everything emerges from that gap — the void.
We need the void of nothing in order to create something. As an example, consider any sound that you might make.
Where does it come from? The void, the silence, the emptiness.
Without the void, there would be noise all the time.
1: Observe the Silence Between the Notes
“It’s the silence between the notes that makes the music” is an ancient Zen observation, which clarifies this idea. Imagine, if you can, music without pauses or silent spaces. Without the pauses for silence, the music would be one infinitely long note of noise. What we call music would be impossible.
This is true for all of creation, including the world that we wish to create for ourselves. Creativity itself is a function of the gap. The evidence for this is right in front of you.
2: Think of Thoughts as Things
Think of thoughts as things, which need silence between them to attract and manifest new forms into life. Two bricks can’t be fastened together to form a wall without a space for mortar. The mortar itself is comprised of particles, which require spaces to allow them to become mortar.
Our thoughts are the same.
3: Observe Your Thoughts, But Don’t Describe Them
It’s a place of ecstatic peace and serenity. It’s a place that the ancient ones of the Far East called the Tao, and they were careful to elucidate that the Tao that can be described is not the Tao.
4: Dissolve Your Boundaries
In every drop of human protoplasm, there’s a “future-pull” that allow the physical journey to progress. The entire material-world journey is all in that microscopic drop of a seedling called our conception. It came from the nowhere, shows up in nowhere, and is heading back to nowhere.
There’s something analogous with our thoughts as well. Within us is the almost unfathomable power to enter the gap between our thoughts, where we can commune silently with God and bring to life the same creativity that we see in the world of nature — of which we’re an integral component.
