There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him. After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn. He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.

Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the farmer was about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be given another chance. The farmer looked at him and thought, “Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere enough.”

So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed.

The boy replied, “I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction.”

Teaching:

A peaceful, uncluttered mind can think more clearly compared to a worked up mind.

We should allow a few minutes of silence for our mind every day and see how sharply it helps us to regulate and discipline our life.

The Practice of Silence:

There are two things, the container and the contents. When we observe the contents our attention is taken away from the

container. This is what happens most of the time when one is asked to sit in silence. The mind is the container and thoughts and feelings are the contents. One gets identified with the contents and gets carried away by it. One usually starts brooding over the past or brings up future worries and anxieties. When we are focused on the container our attention is drawn away from the contents.

Similarly, sitting in silence means focusing our attention on the container — the mind, and not its contents, the thoughts and feelings. When we practice this over a period of time, the container itself disappears and the observer alone remains. The observer is other than the contents and the container and is the Supreme Reality. When there is nothing to observe the observer also gets absorbed in Pure Existence, Pure Awareness, the Supreme Reality, where there is no entity as such to claim it.