Are you an active person? I suppose that depends on your definition of activity. Are you busy “running about” most of the time? Do you think that makes you an active person? I wonder if it does? I don’t think activity always demands action. I think there are times when our actions are an excuse for not knowing what we really want to do. A lot of time and energy is often wasted fussing over nonessentials. We can ill afford such an extravagant output of strength, which achieves actually nothing. Sooner or later we have to decide on what is
important and what is unimportant because if we try to do everything at once, we shall end up by doing almost nothing productive. This human mind of ours is a very delicate and complex instrument. It is subject to strains and stress both from within and outside, and too much pressure can often result in a breakdown.
Mental fatigue can be just as exhausting as bodily weariness. There’s only one way to keep on going, and that’s by a constant return to the quiet place of communication with the Inner Self within us. To rest quietly with the Source of all life and vitality, and that surprisingly enough, is activity; that activity which transcends our mental or physical activities. There is a point of stillness at the hub of the whirling wheel of time, and it’s to that center that we must learn to withdraw if we’re not going to be broken on the spokes or flung off the edge.
This quietness at the heart of the activity is the only place where this Inner Self can get to us. So if we want this peace we must put ourselves consciously in a position to receive it. This is the secret of renewal of strength, mental, physical and spiritual. Having found this truth, you will experience the confidence of the mind that has found its true center.
Activity does not always mean running about. The activity of this Inner Self is often in absolute stillness. When we take your car battery to the gas station to be charged, it stands up on a shelf with only two wires attached to it, and it seems to be completely dead, nothing’s going on, and yet deep within the cells of that battery more activity is going on than at any other time in its life.
I think it was Sir Edward Arnold who wrote, “Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels, none other holds you that you live and die, and whirl upon the wheel and hug and kiss its spokes of agony.” It is true that you’re not bound to a constant whirl of activity and often you’re most active when you can become completely still and allow this Inner Self to be active within you.
Total
13
Shares