What Am I Making Room For?

Most of us know what it means to make room for something we value.

When guests are coming to dinner, we make room at the table. When we purchase something new, we make room for it in a closet or drawer. When someone we love needs to speak, we make room in our schedule to listen.

But how often do we consciously make room within the mind?

Modern life provides almost unlimited opportunities to fill every available space. From the moment we awaken, there are messages to read, news to absorb, responsibilities to remember, problems to solve, conversations to conduct, plans to make, and screens waiting to occupy whatever attention remains.

Even when the outer world becomes quiet, the inner world may continue its activity. We remember. We rehearse. We anticipate. We worry. We judge. We plan. And because this constant activity has become so familiar, we can easily assume that creativity requires us to add still more.

Another idea. Another technique. Another piece of information. Another effort. But Yoga Science invites us to consider another possibility: Perhaps creativity sometimes requires not adding something, but making room for something.

Have You Ever Contemplated The Value of Space?

Imagine a glass already filled to the brim. No matter how pure the water we attempt to pour into it, the glass cannot receive anything more. The problem is not the absence of water. The problem is the absence of space.

Something similar can happen within the mind. Our unconscious mind contains an ever-growing collection of memories, desires, fears, expectations, habits, and samskaras. The ego has its seemingly endless likes and dislikes. The senses continually report what they find attractive or unattractive.

All of this information has value. But when our attention is continually occupied by what we already know, believe, desire, fear, or expect, how receptive are we to something we have not yet considered?

This is where the Yogic practice of vairagya—detachment, or non-attachment—becomes enormously practical.

Vairagya does not require us to reject the world, suppress our thoughts, or become indifferent. It simply asks us to create some space between what appears in the mind and what we automatically do with it.

A thought can arise without our immediately following it. A desire can appear without our immediately serving it. An opinion can present itself without our immediately defending it. An old solution can come to mind without our assuming it must be the only solution.

For just a moment, we can pause. And in that pause, we make room.

AMI Meditation® provides us with a direct experience of this principle. As we follow the mantra into the witnessing state, the mind gradually moves from active levels of thinking toward quieter and more refined levels. At times, the meditator may move beyond thinking and feeling altogether and enter the silence.

From the perspective of the limited personality, silence may appear to contain nothing or to be empty, but Yoga Science understands it differently. In that silence, Consciousness can observe Consciousness without an object—without a thought, desire, emotion, or physical entity demanding our attention.

This is not an empty void. It is the ground of our existence. And when the mind and body become increasingly still, we become more receptive to the super-conscious, intuitive, healing wisdom that is always available but can easily be obscured by the noise and activity of the personality.

Silence does not manufacture wisdom. It makes room for wisdom to be recognized. That distinction is essential. Perhaps this is one reason artists often understand the creative value of space.

Before the first brushstroke, there is an empty panel.
Before the first note, there is silence.
Before the first word, there is a blank page.

But the painter, musician, or writer need not be the only artist. A physician facing an unfamiliar problem may need to make room beyond what has worked before. A parent may need to release a habitual response long enough to truly hear a child. A teacher may need to recognize that yesterday’s explanation is not reaching today’s student. A businessperson may need to stop rehearsing familiar solutions long enough for another possibility to become visible.

And each of us, practicing the art of living, must repeatedly make room between stimulus and response so that the Conscience can reflect Inner Wisdom into the conscious mind.

Creativity is not confined to the studio, workplace or home. All life is the laboratory. All of life is sadhana.

An Experiment for This Week

Sometime this week, when you encounter a question, problem, decision, or relationship that seems to demand an immediate answer, experiment with doing something unusual.

Before reaching for the familiar response— make room. Pause. Take a diaphragmatic breath. Practice vairagya, detachment toward the first solution the personality presents.

You do not need to reject it. Simply do not assume that it is the only possibility. Allow yourself a few moments of silence. And then ask: What am I making room for?

 Perhaps nothing dramatic will happen. Perhaps no brilliant idea will arrive. That is perfectly all right. The purpose of the experiment is not to demand that creativity immediately perform for us. It is to practice receptivity.

We cannot command Inner Wisdom. But we can cultivate conditions in which we become more available to recognize it. That is part of sadhana. Again and again, we learn to quiet what we already know long enough to become receptive to what we may need to know now.

And perhaps this is one of the great paradoxes of creativity: We often assume that creating requires us to do more. Sometimes our most creative act is to stop. To pause. To detach. To become silent. To make room. Because what we are seeking may not need to be invented by the busy personality. It may already be waiting to become visible.

So this week, amid the conversations, responsibilities, decisions, screens, memories, desires, and plans competing for your attention, remember the overflowing glass.

And ask yourself: What Am I Making Room For?

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