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Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
I am quoting Sanskrit verses from many texts, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and allied texts. Unless those people who are seekers of Truth are interested in learning these verses, whereby they will always be in their stock of memory, I don’t think your sādhanā will be effective and will be helped properly.
Poetry lends itself to be memorized comfortably and once memorized any poetry will remain there. Because in poetry, unlike in prose, there is a rule, there is a rhythm by which each letter fits into the other. Either it precedes or it follows according to a certain rhythm called meter and there are many meters in Sanskrit. You cannot easily replace a letter or replace even a phrase because of its close alliance with the preceding and succeeding letters or words.
So if we strain or strive a little bit, whatever we have learnt in the form of poetry will come to our mind again intact. This is something exceptionally good and lends itself to study and emulation. So I would like you, as I told ‘X’ and ‘Y’ last night, to study a bit of Sanskrit and learn these Sanskrit verses properly. I am quoting one or two verses from Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana.
Manasaiva manaśchitvā kuṭāreṇeva pādapam. A huge tree is there and that huge tree is felled by using an axe. The axe becomes harness-able and applicable only because of a wooden handle it has. You don’t touch the axe at all but you touch and manipulate the handle and the handle is always made out of wood. If it were also made of steel, we won’t be able to lift it and apply it when we are striking at the tree. There are big axes and also small ones. If the tree is to be cut at a certain height, a very tall tree if one or two pieces to be taken, then the smaller one is taken and that is used. In Malayalam it is called kodāli. The bigger one is called mazhu.
Here he says, Manasa eva manaśchitvā kuṭāreṇeva pādapam. Just like by using an axe, a huge tree is felled, you have to use the mind itself to fell the mind. If you want to handle the mind, you have to use the mind itself to handle itself, because it is not something physical and nothing of the bodily part or process can apply itself on it. So, you have to enter into the mind arena and by a process of mentation, you have to make the mind docile and be whatever you want. Here Vasishtha uses a phrase. Just like by a kuṭāra a huge tree is felled, you have to cut across the mind. How do you cut across the mind? By the mind itself!
Suppose you are saying repeatedly and thinking repeatedly that ‘I am unaffected’, ‘I am unaffected by whatever takes place’. The unaffected, unaffected, unaffected, unaffected - Repeatedly if you say that and apply as if it is axe stroking on the wood, you will find you will be unaffected! Similarly, in true spiritual sādhanā, we are chanting or we are doing an anusandhāna, the effect of which is extinction of the mind. The first kind of extinction is when the mind stops the thought process, even the mantra it will not chant.
The mind has got only two positions, one is the thoughtful position or thought-free position. In sleep, you don’t have any working of the mind. But in wakefulness, the mind is always thoughtful. It is the same mind that is thoughtful that becomes thoughtless in sleep. So the mind has got two positions. Normally we are in the first position - thoughtfulness and we try to enhance it, intensify it, strengthen it, improve it by all means. So the thoughts become huge in us.
Suppose you use the mind and tell the mind that, “No! Try to become thought-free, thought-free, thought-free, thought-free, thought-free, thought-free, thought-free…”, it will become thought-free.
Whatever you contemplate upon or think of, that the mind will become. This is a law of the mind. So, Vasishtha says:
If you are able to cut across the mind - that is the one where you reach the transcendental level. What is meant by transcendental level? The normal level is thoughtfulness. So transcendental is to go beyond thoughtfulness and be thought-free. When you are able to go to the source of the very thinking mind - that will be thought-free. From there, the thoughtfulness arises. So that is the source. If it is the source, we can lead the mind to that source. The tenacity, the success, the sharpness, the intensity, the attention with which you do the practice will determine how soon you reach there.
He uses another expression - I don’t know why I say all this. I like it so I say. I don’t know whether you will like it.
Cittam cid-bhakshitam kṛtvā cittād-api paro bhava ||
Do you know what is very special about your Swamiji? I have got an insight about all this. My experience is first and last. But between the experiences, there are so many revelations in our śāstras if you can grasp them and follow them. What is meant by following? If you grasp them you will be like them, so here is an expression:
Cittam means the mind.
Cid-bhakshitam kṛtvā – you try to find out what is this citta or mind. The mind is no other than Consciousness. Consciousness is called ‘cit’. So go into the mind, whatever it may be thinking. Mind in its present form with all the thoughts – mind you – the thoughts are produced by the mind, not by any other agency. It is its own independent handiwork. Whatever the mind does alone by itself - is it not mental? Yes! Then you understand that all thoughts, processes, responses, reactions, all of them are mental and the mentation itself is proceeding from Consciousness. So the mind and its reactions, mind and its products, the aggregate is born of ‘cit’, the Consciousness. Like of all gold ornaments gold is the root cause, then all the ornaments are golden, in the same manner, if mind and mind’s reactions are all produced from the ‘cit’ or Consciousness, all are Consciousness.
When you are able to understand this and rely upon this understanding, Cittam cid-bhakshitam kṛtvā. Let your mind be eaten up by cit, Consciousness.
Then, cittād-api paro bhava. Transcend or rise above the mind and remain comfortably.
So the thoughts of the mind, the reactions of the mind, good and bad, anything and everything of the mind will not the least swallow you up because the entire mind is already swallowed by the cit. So the cit itself remains there. And that knowledge will make you so stable and poised that there is nothing like that.
So my dear souls, you are not supposed to bother about the thought process. Try to find out how the thought processes evolve from the mind. Try also to find out wherefrom the mind evolves. Our wakefulness has emerged from the sleep; so sleep is the source of wakefulness. Whatever is there in sleep, that alone is there in wakefulness. When you understand this, I think it will be a great revelation and revolution. That is how one becomes liberated and the whole life undergoes a drastic change.
I don’t have anything worth getting from the sensory interactions. Ultimately it is the mind and its own contentment that matter. If contentment is belonging to the mind, having the mind means I am the author and the bestower of all degrees of contentment. When you have this feeling – Can you imagine how much it elevates you, how much it ornaments you? Think about it.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
