On autopilot, the normal mind is so divorced from the reality of the moment that it could very easily be said that, normally, we are demented... "living" a half-life.

The solution is horribly simple: turn off the autopilot! This is what we do when we meditate. But, very often, the more we engage our minds through meditation, the noisier our minds become. Of course, that is not true - it's just that we become more aware of how noisy our mind was in the first place.

And that is a very good thing - that awareness is a major leap forward in understanding how we can live our lives to the full.