Sat discusses how we can find peace by keeping our attention on the heart.
Sat: If something does not give you peace, don't think it, if it doesn't give you peace, don't say it and if it doesn't give you peace, don't do it. And use the Stop Meditation against the thoughts that are repeated. The Omnipresent Meditation, going Home in your meditation, going to the region of the heart, these all make the attention bow down here to the Heart, rather than up there (points to her head). It is your attention that needs to shift, not the mind, the mind is fine.
It would be like this, just imagine you've gone to a movie theater and the movie that is playing is a comedy and you laugh and you laugh and you laugh; you are involved with a comedy. Then at the end of the movie, everyone starts shooting at each other, and you cry and you cry and you cry. When we send our attention upward, we are involved with every imagery and therefore we have no stability. But, if we train our mind to go down again and again and again and again, our attention does not escape and the heart and the mind become one Pure Awareness.
The practice we need to do after we leave here (the retreat) is to consciously, vigilantly bring our attention down, not the thoughts, but the attention. Attention stirs things: if it is on the mind, it stirs the mind and if it is on the heart, it stirs the silence, which makes it spread all throughout your body. So the attention has to come down again and again and again and again and again.
If opening the suitcase of your memory in front of other people does not give you any peace, quit opening it. If the repeated thoughts bother you or if you have some concerns in your life, take the attention downwards, meaning you rest your attention in silence and are not involved with your mind’s thoughts and imagery. This is your true Self; you must know your true Self. So take the attention down over and over until it hardly comes up anymore.
It needs dedication, it needs thirst for peace. It is simple and yet it needs a lot of practice. Every time that you watch yourself being involved with the imagery, every time you bring the attention to the region of the heart and find the stillness, you are one step closer to the elimination of a sorrowful life.
Otherwise the temptation and the images that fly in one after another can keep our attention until our last breath, with no peace, no peace of mind. So find a quiet place and make a discipline of diverting the attention and getting to know your Self like never before, and remember God is not in all forms, God IS, the form Isn't. That is the highest truth. Find that Is-ness.
- From "The Retreat of Silence and Simplicity" (Lake Tahoe), Sat’s birthday 8/18/13