Bangkok is spread over an area of 604 square miles and has a population of 6.35 million people. As Ethan looked out over the city from his 19th floor penthouse, he was surrounded by an orchestra of noise coming from every direction. He could hear the rushing of traffic, the pounding of horns, and the thunder of music in the early morning sky. He was tired but was too excited to sleep. He had heard people describe New York as the city that never sleeps, but the same could be said of Bangkok. People were in their apartments, walking on the streets, driving, talking and creating noise everywhere, even at this hour of the night. He wondered if the city ever stopped, ever took a break. Lying in bed later, Ethan could hear the noise and see the neon lights that flashed in the night sky.
“Does this city never stop?” he wondered. “When does this place ever get time to slow down or take time out?”
Ethan began to consider how our environment plays a huge part in our way of thinking, how it actually helps to create our way of thinking. He thought what it would be like living in an environment like this. He had lived in London and Dublin and had experienced how environmental influences can make you think. He began to think about how there are different kinds of consciousness and, as he thought, a light bulb came on in his mind. There is a wealthy consciousness, a middle-class consciousness, and a poor consciousness, he realised. Bangkok has a certain consciousness as does England, Germany, France and other countries all of which had their own unique cultural perspective. The experience of this noisy environment in Bangkok made Ethan’s mind feel cluttered. It made his mind race and he found it difficult to relax in this busy environment.
The next morning Ethan woke up and ambled down to a fine breakfast. The sun shone brightly and the city was starting to heat up. He walked down by the river, leaning over the edge of the boundary wall and glancing into the water. It was so dirty and clogged up that you couldn’t see through the water. As he continued to walk further down the street, he felt the reality of moving from his luxurious, five-star hotel to a scene of poverty. Half-built, run-down, dirty buildings with pieces crumbling away from them, were dissected by choked roads full of motorcycles, cars, noise and pollution. It seemed to him that the people here spent much of their lives just trying to get from A to B by car. “They must be living in their cars. When did they ever get time to stop?” To Ethan, it appeared to be a waste of time. He remembered spending so much of his own time driving to and from work, nearly three hours and twenty minutes every day. And what had it achieved for him? Nothing, except unhappiness and stress.
Smells filled the Bangkok air but they were like the smells from a rubbish dump. People were cooking at the side of the street and it appeared they were living in their shops. Ethan began to feel uncomfortable about where he was staying when there was such poverty right on his five-star hotel’s doorstep.
Could this experience be a message? There certainly are different levels of existence and he thought that two weeks of living there, in such a crazy city, would leave his mind racing, wandering and maybe filled with aggression. It would be hard to get in touch with his self in the midst of such noise, he thought.
As he walked through the city, he decided to centre himself. He started listening very attentively. And as he listened very attentively, he could hear so much noise. So many people talking, so much music, intercoms, pots and pans moving in shops, clothes moving, people walking around. As he looked he could see the busy lives of these people who were constantly on the go, never taking a breather, never relaxing. He knew that, sometimes, life was like that, but the more he looked and watched, the more he could see. Suddenly, he understood. It was if he could see his inner self, his mind. It was as if, for a moment, the entire world was just one mind and that mind was God’s mind, because God creates everything. Standing there, he felt as if he was experiencing part of God’s creation with all of these people and all of the noises.
An overwhelming feeling came upon him, there was just too much happening. He began to frown at the intense level of noise all around him, as he became more aware. The noise of everyday life was always there, but Ethan had never really taken as much notice of it before as he now did. It was like being able to hear the thoughts of everyone around him all at once. He wanted it to stop. There was so much noise.
“Please stop”, he begged. “Just stop. Let me be.”
He felt that he was in a scene in a movie that was being made about his life and that all he wanted, at that moment, was to be able to freeze-frame, pause the movie and just relax and get his bearings.
He thought about God, about how, if God is the creator of everything, if he created the world, then he could imagine the world like the mind of God. If that was true, then what must God think of us when he hears all this noise caused by human existence? What must he think of all the chatter, prayers, questions, thoughts, language or inner beliefs?
“You live in a world which is constantly go, go, go, move, move, move and do, do, do.”
Suddenly, his voice was back, speaking to him. He had reached a bus station and now sat down on a chair and listened to his inner voice.
“People are constantly thinking thoughts of this or that. Thinking thoughts about how are you going to do this, or how you going to do that? Thinking thoughts like, ‘Oh, I must go to the shop and get that loaf of bread’. And while they’re thinking about that they may also be thinking about going to the gym. They might walk into that gym, see somebody on a treadmill running with a TV screen in front of them, showing the news or playing songs. At the same time they’ve got their iPod on with ear phones, listening to music. So, they are running, watching TV, whilst listening to music, and possibly reading the newspaper at the same time! Distraction… distraction… distraction. Is this what life is about?
“It’s a constant battle for your attention and your mind is constantly searching, looking for ways to be entertained. But these are all external distractions, which battle for your attention? Advertisements distract you, fight for your attention, fight for a piece of your mind. Are you being taken over by society? Is it conditioning you? Is somebody playing a trick on you? The trick is to distract you as much as possible, to invade and take over your mind because, the more you are distracted, the less you will know who you really are. I wondered if you are interested in this? Knowing who you actually are, that is, at the deeper level?”
Ethan was experiencing all this as he sat there in the bus station and, as he did so, his awareness cried out to him, saying: “Stop. Take time out. Relax. Find out who you really are.”
A film came to Ethan’s mind, ‘Bruce Almighty’ starring Jim Carey. In the movie, Carey’s character, Bruce, becomes God for a short while. During that period, he can hear all the voices of his people, and listens to everyone’s prayers.
“God I want this.”
“God I want that.”
“Can you help my son?”
“Can you help my daughter? My family?”
“God I want to have a happier marriage.”
“Now I need to be healthier.”
“Can you help this person because they are sick?”
Carey’s character is overwhelmed but, in real life, God is hearing all of these things. The average human being, science calculates, thinks 60,000 thoughts per day, thought Ethan. Now multiply those 60,000 prayers by the planet’s seven billion people. How many thoughts
