Visualization Exercise for a Peaceful Mind

Simple thoughts can bring serenity to your being

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”~ Marcus Aurelius

The Exercise: My Personal Experience

I am writing these lines with my eyes closed. I am trying to visualize that my mind is floating in a void. My fingers are writing the words as they pop up in my head.

I can see just a blank reddish screen as my eyes are closed at this time. Then all of a sudden, with my intention, my mind starts to see — or imagine — different things.

When I started writing, with closed eyes, I could see the words popping into my head from below a surface. Each word came up and went down, like the fruits in Fruit Ninja that I used to play a few years back.

Then the popping word shapes vanished, but I could still write the stream of thoughts. Now my thought-space was empty.

I can see — imagine — space now. It is a void. Like I have seen in Star Trek, but there are no planets here. All of a sudden, with my intention, I see a huge white-colored cloth. It is hanging in space, spreading across thousands of miles. Its white color is shining as if it is reflecting a kind of light, but the source is not visible.

I can’t see myself in this space. I can imagine the expanse and the white cloth, but I am not there. It is as if I am everywhere, and I am nowhere.

Then I imagine that the white cloth is starting to wave a little as if there is a light wind blowing.

As far as I can see, the white cloth stretches in all directions. There is nothing near or far except the white cloth, reflecting light and slightly waving.

My entire being and all my thoughts are of just this white cloth. It seems that there exists nothing else in my mind. The only thing that exists is this never-ending white cloth, shining and waving.

I can’t move in this space as I am already present everywhere, as this space is inside my mind. This shining and waving white cloth has filled my entire thought-space. I wish to open my eyes, but I know if I opened my eyes, my white cloth will go away, and the colors of my room will flood my awareness.

I can’t open my eyes for five minutes. I have already set an alarm clock for that. But now, the moment I mention the alarm clock, there is a huge alarm clock, sitting just beside the white cloth. I am trying to remove the alarm clock, but it stubbornly persists.

Far away in a recess of my mind-space, there is a megaphone, and it abruptly sends bursts of fully formed sentences. These sentences are filling the otherwise empty white cloth containing space. The sound is declaring that my writing experiment is going to fail, as I will not be able to empty my mind.

The gigantic alarm clock has started ticking now. The shining and waving white cloth is there, but the alarm clock is big. It is so big that it has filled up the entire remaining space that was previously empty. I think it has been three minutes now. My eyes are closed, and I am writing these thoughts as they come into my conscious awareness.

The imagined space is there with the white cloth and the alarm clock. I am getting bored. I want something more to happen. My readers would feel this very itch — I think. The short bursts of sentences were telling me to do something more meaningful instead of repeating the same white cloth and alarm clock ad infinitum.

I don’t know if I’ll have the courage to publish this for my readers. They won’t appreciate your writing. They mightn’t have seen such a piece of writing in their entire lives. Who can write with their eyes closed?

Debates are staring in my otherwise empty thought-space. I failed this time.

I have decided to start with a new thought-space. I am shutting down this alarm clock and doubt-filled space.

I have started from zero again. It is a new space with a white cloth that extends as far away as I can see inside my mind.

The white cloth inside my thought-space is just so serene and calming that I may fall asleep if I do not open my eyes. I open my eyes slightly and close them again.

I have started enjoying this white cloth because it has become the fabric of my new existence. There is nothing in my life. No future. No past. Just the present moment with a white cloth, waving as if there is a slight wind blowing.

I am not in this space. I am just everywhere in my thought-space, and I can see and control everything as I please. But I choose to have this white cloth, shining and waving.

The ringing alarm clock forces me to open my eyes, and my real thoughts flood my imagination. The white cloth is gone.

How to Make This Exercise a Habit

Unlearning is the art of skilfully challenging your previously accumulated knowledge, weakening its hold on your mind, and replacing it with new information that is seemingly better than what you had stored earlier.

To empty your mind of thoughts, the best you can do is to think about something that has much less detail and complexity as compared with your complicated personal and professional worries.

What you can do is to repeat this experiment yourself until you can be with the white cloth for five minutes. As you would have noticed that I failed, and some thoughts crept in slowly. I did not edit the above text after opening my eyes so that it can remain pristine.

While you try to empty your mind, some thoughts may creep in; it is normal. Don’t give up. Even after you have mastered it, it might not be a success every time. It depends on the time of the day, your inner anxiety, and the outer environment.

If you want to empty your mind by not thinking about a particular thing like the white cloth, you would find it much more difficult to stop your mind from conjuring up something. It is designed to conjure things up. It cannot sit still even when we are asleep. It never goes offline.

But the most relaxing and nourishing sleep is slow-wave sleep (SWS), called deep sleep, and it is dreamless. When the only reality you experience is a white cloth, it is probably the best way to almost empty your mind in five seconds. Be patient with yourself. If you fail, go back to a new thought-space.

If you make a habit of emptying your mind for five minutes in a day, you will develop a kind of mental muscle memory to do it at any time. Then the moment you realize that you are thinking useless thoughts, you can instantly stop them by a simple strong visualization in your mind.

Mindfulness meditation, free writing, and physical movement are also good techniques to reset your mind.