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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
Last night I had a discussion with Dr. 'X'. I thought the benefit of the discussion should be made available to all of you. The discussion was about M-I-N-D, mind.
Our personality is a composite one. In that composite personality, we have our body, the biological body which is a matter-energy aggregate but animated, biologized. When a body becomes dead, the biological process comes to a stop, the animation stops. Till then, it is animated. Will you agree then that there is a power or presence which animates the matter-energy aggregate called the body?
This mind is exclusive to every individual. The mind cannot be thought of, felt or probed into, in any other area than within oneself. It is a full domain of the individual whereas, can you explore into so many metals, minerals, salts and other factors in our planet, in our whole creation? That is a job of the scientists and they are not going to reach an end of it because this research is so protracted and the things to be gone into are too many that they can be never completed. Forget about it. But what about the mind?
That there is a mind is everyone’s experience and everybody will agree. Then should you not know what this mind is? It is after all present in your body. Why don’t you know it? Are we not knowing it? Yes, because all the feelings and thoughts in one are produced by the mind. So, we are able to feel the feelings, emotions, thoughts, reactions and the like. If we are able to feel all these things, can we not equally feel the cause and source of all these things?
When you look at a running train, you see the train running. As it runs, it is running, running, running, where is it running? Then if you observe, you will find the rails and the Earth below the running train, they don’t move at all. Can you miss that? No. In the same manner, as we are conscious of the thoughts and feelings, memories etc. why should we not be conscious of the source and cause of these? Our meditation and deeksha are meant to probe into this inner area. How to make you understand this?
Everybody when he sits for meditation says that “Oh thoughts, thoughts, thoughts..“. Do you mean to say that you want to get hold of a state where no thought will be there, you will be able to switch it off? Can we switch off the blood circulation, the respiration and so many other processes in the body? Can the mind process ever be suspended? If it is suspended, will it be desirable, good?
We only want to have a mind structure which will be able to function without causing any disturbance. It is in this context that I want you to think one important factor. Mind produces thoughts, but this production is not a physical process. When a thought is produced, no new product comes within the body and no additional space is occupied by it and no separate entity is also made. The thinking of the mind and the emergence of thoughts are not like in a factory, steel is used to produce nails, with every nail produced, it will occupy an additional space and separated from the source material. It is not like that. The mind is unlike any other substance that we can think of. It is not a substance at all. It is a presence. Why don’t you close your eyes and find out this fact? Mind is there, mind is there, it produces thoughts, but no thought remains for long. As soon as it emerges it subsides. When it emerges and when it subsides, what is the source from which these take place? Why don’t you sit and feel? You cannot say that “Swamiji, I am not able to find out.” Then will somebody else be able to find out? So, this is the blockade that you have to overcome. I can only call it the effect of tamoguna.
Understand it from me that the thought is not different from the mind. Mind itself becomes the thought, as walking is not different from the legs, standing is not different from the legs, running, sitting, lying, jumping, none of these functions is different from the legs. Legs themselves in a phase of expression gives rise to these movements and processes. So, the mind remains the same. In any of its function, it does not change at all, at all, at all. This is the fact that you have to find out in your meditation.
Close your eyes, interlock your fingers, put them on your lap and then be inside you with the mind, with the thought process. You are doing it not to get disturbed, but to understand that there is no disturbance. We want a healthy mind which will think well, remember well and will give you all the facts and figures when you need. So, we want an efficient, effective, friendly, benevolent mind. The quality or the habit of the mind can be changed but the mind as a substance cannot change. So, no thought is different from the mind.
Sit inside your body, get there and reduce the speed of thinking. If you have a mantra, chant the mantra, chant the mantra, chant the mantra. Make the mind thin, thin, thinner, thinner, thinner, lighter, lighter, lighter, feebler, feebler, feebler and you will find the thought process becomes very, very visible for you, very obvious and you understand like a wave in water, the water alone becomes the wave, the mind alone becomes the thought, the thought alone is the mind, one is not disturbing the other. When you are able to understand the undisturbed character of the mind by the thought process, then such a peace, such a lightness is felt. This lightness transforms your personality.
It is a great discovery that the thought is not different from the mind and hence it does not cause any torment, hardship or scar on the mind. Even if the mind thinks, the thought process is not affecting you. Whatever good information is there you will take, that’s all. No thought becomes unnecessary, disturbing or piercing or cutting or splitting. Now, this mystery you have to understand. It is a fact.
The whole meditation should be to feel, to feel the thought process. The thought is taking place in you. You know the thought, how is that you forget or you fail to know the thinking substance and the thinker? Unless there is thinker and thinking, how can there be a thought? Why don’t you feel these processes, thinkerhood, thinking, thought?
So, the discovery that you have to make is mind and thought are not different. The mind does not change in thinking, the legs do not change in walking, the tongue does not change in speaking, the ear does not change in hearing. So, you will find the thoughts no more disturb you. No disturbance means peace and serenity. The quality of the mind changes. The disturbing mind becomes peaceful. It becomes still and poised. Everyone reports that “My mind thinks, my mind thinks, my mind thinks.” What else the mind will do?
So, I would like you to use the days of stay that you have here to probe into your own within and feel, feel, feel the presence called the mind and then its function called thinking and feeling.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.