Quieting the mind

Jewish Meditation chapter two adapted from Aryeh Kaplan’s Work


Why?......The big question what is the benefit of doing meditation? Throughout our lives we have not grown much in terms of thinking. In fact most of us were taught to think at the age of six and not much has really changed since then. Meditation means we take control of our thought and of our mind. At 6 years old we did not learn how to control or harness the power of our mind. This is a quantum leap. The Torah says that our thinking before we practice spirituality is that of a child while the thinking that we practice after spirituality training is considered adult thinking.


Consider looking at a rose. Is our perception pure? Actually it is not . Even with our eyes open in a well lit room there are images floating right in front of us being generated by our subconscious mind. It interferes with our perception. Some one who practices meditation could learn to quiet the other parts of the brain down. While this does not harness the full power of the mind is does reduce the interference. Considerably close to fine tuning a radio. Clearer sound but not any louder.

Our senses often interfere with each other. Ever try reading Braille? Even someone trained has a hard time doing it unless they close their eyes. Why? Because their vision interferes with their tactile sensations. Blind people also use their cane to navigate. This works because the sounds produced by the cane echo off the walls. This alerts the blind person if he is about to bump into something.

Tibetan healers can feel a person’s pulse and determine what is ailing the person. It takes many years to learn how to do this. The healer actually closes his eyes and enters a state of deep concentration as he feels his patient’s pulse. This closing of the eyes blocks all the distraction cause by our eyes.

Stimuli is constantly coming our way but our mind makes so much static that we do not even perceive it. Spiritual people, prophets were able to quiet their mind down. In this way way they could practice telepathy, Extra Sensory Perception and predictions.