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Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
Today I thought I will ask you what is your feedback for what I told you a few days back saying that our whole problem is our mind and what the mind does. But without the mind and mind’s work, we cannot live and move. Everything is done by the mind in the mind. All the experiences are caused by it, felt by it and the experiences are reacted to by it and responded to by it. So is there any time or anything which is not mental?
Then why is it that we are always complaining about the mind does this, the mind does that. The complaint is there. What I am finding is that the right way to deal with it is to know the very process. There is a rope lying in dim light. When you first look at it, you feel it is a snake and people start running about. But when you know that it is not a snake but only a rope, does not all the fear flee? But you are looking at the same object. Initially also you looked at the same object. Later on also, you are looking at the same object. The difference is that in the second look you are able to understand that it is a rope and the rope and the snake resemble each other. I generally never quote this example.
Here what I want to say is that whatever you call the mind and whatever you call its process and effects, the process of the mind is mind’s, the effect it produces is also mind’s. The effects are produced looking at the mind’s processes. But in the mind processes, is there anything besides the mind? Say a person is running. When you look at the running, what runs? And in the running process, what is it that you are looking at? You are looking at only legs in a state of motion. When the legs are in a state of motion, do they become non-legs? Is there anything additional or different except that it moves and it was meant to move and that is why it runs? So the movement of the legs does not alter the structure of the legs.
Now you apply the same principle to the mind, the movement of the mind. In case of legs, the legs are moving on the earth. So apart from legs, there is the earth and the earth provides a lot of place for legs to move forward and backward. Is there any such space within the body where the mind causes movement? Why don’t you think about it? Is there any space within the body by virtue of which the mind can move, can vibrate as the legs are running?
The mind requires the body and I tell you that the mind is not part of the body, it is associated with the body. In the movement of the mind, is there any space for mind to move? So unlike the legs running, can the mind run? So what is it that you are referring to as the mind’s process? Is there any material, physical, substantial movement or vibration? Then looking at ‘what’ do you say it thinks? This point, will you take it into heart and find an answer for me?
In the sea there is a wave because the sea water, above that is the column of air, so the water pushes the air. Is there any such provision within the body for the mind to pull and push? So what do you call the mind process? Is there any kind of physical movement, vibration or otherwise? Or as in a factory you take raw material and produce goods, will the mind take a raw material and convert it into goods or it is all the mind? So to refer to anything like a mind process, a mind movement and the effects and outcome produced by these is actually wrong.
The next point I say is that whenever the mind thinks we get agitation. What is the way to meet this agitation? What is the way not to be afraid of the rope? To keep the knowledge that it is a rope and not a snake. In the same manner, there is no process called the mind, there is no movement in the mind level but whatever takes place is only a kind of a feeling or notion that is generated by the mind. Can you not resort to this knowledge to meet this agitation, is a question that I am asking. You should answer me.
The knowledge that the mind cannot move, it cannot produce, it cannot become, it cannot undergo a modification or a transformation, then what are these, they are only notional like we dream. None of the dream phenomena are there but the dream is there. When we wake up, the whole dream is gone. But there are people who see a dream and get up and start crying and weeping.
It helps in interaction because the knowledge that the mind and the thought are the same helps us to remain unaffected. Because on the basis of what you will meet this affectation? This is where I want you to understand and answer me. I look at you and find a mistake. When I point the mistake, you are immensely hurt, immediately you are hurt. Maybe I also get agitated or I also become unpleasant. The question is, what is this unpleasantness due to? It is due to the mind’s work. You don’t have anything to fall back upon to treat this agitation. This knowledge, will it not help you to treat the agitation?
‘I have done a mistake; it is a mistake. So I will correct.’ To say that, why it should take time? We are not concerned about the mistake having been done, but we are concerned about having pointed it out and because of that we are agitated. So what is the purpose of pointing out, that is taken away! And ‘You have said’, ‘You have said’, ‘You have said’ etc. I sometimes feel so disgusted and the disgust is overtaking me also sometimes.
So the knowledge that the mind is not different from thought, thought is not different from the mind and at no point of the mind’s processes, the substance ever changes, that it is a changeless substance, will it not help you to resolve this agitation? Otherwise what will help you, tell me? If this will not help you, what will help you? In this way when the question comes – “Why I am agitated? Why I am having fear? Why I am having this, that and all?” You can question it because whatever causes you agitation is the mind itself. So the mind causes agitation to the mind.
Does the poison of the snake bite itself and kills the snake? The poison of the snake acts on other, it does not act on itself. This is the point. I think this is the crux of the whole thing, provided you can understand it, feel it and act upon it. In the Ashram also, whenever we point out a mistake, what I find is that pointing out the mistake is wrong. Do you understand? Pointing out mistake is wrong. “Why did you speak in this manner, why did you speak in this manner?” The mistake is not the concern of anybody, and it leads to personal intolerance and fight. Ultimately, they become stark enemies. This is what I find. Very rarely I hear, “Yes. After all Swamiji, all this is said and done. We are working together and we are carrying on” etc. You know, I am very happy when they say this but such moments are very rare. You can think about it.
This truth is such a wonderful truth that it can be applied at any point of time for anything. Let it be the death of a man, loss of this, loss of that, anything whatsoever. So my primary point is that, altogether there is only one substance, you call it the mind, and a mind does a process and we get agitated. Why should we be agitated by the mind doing something? Then who is agitated - the mind is agitated by its own action. So even in the so-called action, why don’t you think that what runs are the legs? There is no substance other than the legs. They have the capacity to run, so they run, so they are running. Seeing the legs in fast movement, will you be afraid? Why are you not afraid? Because you very clearly see that the legs are moving on the ground, so the ground is visible, the legs are visible and the movement of space is visible but similarly the mind process is not visible.
You are not able to understand that the mind is a substance, the process does not make it different and there is no process at all allowing so much of space, so much of product like thoughts, so many thoughts and all of them are produced and kept here, we are not able to see, that is why. Here the legs are seen, the ground is seen, the movement of space is seen. There nothing is seen; neither the mind is seen nor the thought is seen nor the process is seen nor the effect seen and we get agitated. What do you say? Is it right? Why don’t you apply it? What do you say?
I asked her to chant a śloka, I told her and she started chanting. Later on, when I asked her, she chants the first two lines, the second line she did not. She says she doesn’t remember. But the second lines are more important, so the important one she had left. But did she tell me that she has left - she has not told me. After a month I asked, then she says “I don’t know the second two lines.”
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
