Why can’t I meditate without my mind going all over?
That’s mainly because that’s the nature of the mind. The nature of the mind is restlessness. The mind has to go all over.
Why is the mind created?
To experience sense objects. So, the mind will go all over. Allow the mind to go all over, but you don’t follow the mind.
You are not your mind, are you?
The mind is a part of you. If you identify yourself with the mind, you will also fluctuate with the mind.
What are your main factors of existence?
The physical body – body-related, emotional – which is mind related, intellectual knowledge – knowledge related, personality – ego related, and soul – spirit related. These are the five major aspects of our existence — physical, emotional, intellectual, ego – egoistic or personality-based, as well as spiritual.
Whatever you identify with, that you become. You can see a lot of people in this world who care much about their physical appearance. They work hard to keep their body in shape, but if something small goes wrong, they feel that they are finished! A body-builder who always looks in the mirror, looking at each muscle, falls down and breaks his leg. What happens to him? He will be lost. He will feel helpless. He will cry the whole day or a few weeks, at least until it’s healed.
Emotions
Likewise, we gravitate towards emotions. Various things which the media freely gives, things like soap operas. And then we cry because other people are crying. And, sometimes, watching movies where people are suffering serves as a sadistic pleasure as well. We think, ‘I’m glad I’m not suffering’. But there is a problem here. Do you know what is happening? That impression is getting stored in your system.
We may think, “It’s okay, it’s on the screen. Other people are suffering, I’m not suffering. I’m okay”. We are not okay; this is not always the case. On a subtle level, you are collecting the impression and storing it in your subconscious mind, in the causal layer. So these impressions become ingredients for a reality in the future. They become ingredients for another life.
Impressions
So, it’s not always as you think. You don’t have to experience everything in life for it to affect you. Even watching a feature film or getting involved with somebody else’s matter can cause those experiences to come to you. This is the karmic residual transfer. If one man is suffering, and you go and cry on his shoulder or ask him to cry on your shoulder, in the end, you carry all the weight, and then you suffer. This happens in life.
So, this residual karma gets transferred very, very quickly. What you see and what you experience always leaves an impression. An impression never goes away without fulfilment; they sit in the causal layer until it manifests as a reality. It is either a concept (which becomes a part of your constitution and/or character) or a pending matter.
Fear
That is why a fear of something, the root of the fear, is sitting inside, and it manifests as fear or something, maybe without any obvious reason. But it comes back and shows up because they are stored inside.
Somebody tells you there was a burglary in their house. You may not have anything to do with that house or the burglary, but that memory stayed. You think, “Oh, there is a possibility of burglary!” Then you start developing a fear around it. And that fear becomes an obstruction in your life. Thus goes, one leads to the other. So, it starts as an impression. It manifests as a reality later on. So, like this, it goes.
Techniques for handling the mind
So, the mind’s job is to be restless; you need to accept that the mind is restless. You cannot do anything about it. But allow it to be restless and have nothing to do with it. When I say have nothing to do with it, as it becomes restless, you just allow that to flow. Just watch. The best technique or technique that Babaji suggested to me in the early 2000s was splitting the mind into two and observing one part of the mind with the other.
Imagine your mind is a huge canvas outside of you. It has all the things you’re carrying, which you already have in the manifested form. Not what is stored; you cannot see what is stored.
Observe the mind
What has manifested are sitting out here all over, and you see it and think, “Oh, this is making a lot of noise, it’s bothering me.” Isolate that part. Keep watching it, but don’t get involved. And don’t judge, criticize, or try to manipulate it. If it’s sitting there making a lot of noise, Okay, keep making noise, I’m not disturbing you. Don’t disturb me either. And then, after a while, the noise silences because you’re not energizing it. And then finally, it drops off.
So, use one part of the mind to observe another part of the mind and allow the mind to exhaust itself. All the fears, anxieties, impressions, expression, everything will come one by one. Let them come. Let them come and go.
Stage of peace
And finally, you reach a stage where you’re totally peaceful; you’re empty. There is nothing to feel, nothing to give. Everything is quiet. And in that quietness, you just sit.
And there’ll be provocations from outside; this is for sure because the mind will be baited all the time. There’ll be something coming from the outside. Maybe one of your relatives will say, look here, there’s a big problem going on, you must get involved.
Get involved, but remain in the state which you are already in. Get involved in anything, not leaving the state that you are in, what you’ve already collected. That means you have collected a state where nothing bothers you. In that state, you can involve in anything you like. Not in the state which you were before this.
See, there’s a big difference here; understand carefully. You can handle anything in life. Don’t say that something is good or that something is bad. Whenever you have likes or dislikes, the mind is happy. The mind says that this is okay, he likes this, and he doesn’t like this. The mind likes to play with these kinds of stuff.
So, you don’t say anything about it. You have no likes, no dislikes. You are peaceful. And then you are handling something extraordinarily tedious, about a neighbour or a friend. But at the same time, you will remain peaceful, so your level of clarity will be very high. You will have a high level of clarity. If you operate in that level of clarity, you can solve a problem like this; there’s no big problem.
How does a problem become big?
Your clarity is less when you’re approaching something without any idea or with a feeling that this is a problem.
Otherwise, you’re looking at a situation. You’re not the situation, nor are you going to solve it. You are pulled into it. You are not creating any situation, as I told you earlier. Destiny creates situations for you to experience. You are not the creator of the situation, are you? You are not even going to solve it. The solution happens through you. So again, you have no ownership. Thirdly, at the end of the day, you have an experience which you don’t care for anyway.
Do you really care about the experience?
If you are not involved in the problem, you get involved in the experience of it. That is what Krishna said. Leave it to me. I release you from the memories of it. So, you do not have anything to do with an activity, nor the memory of it. There are no impressions stored. You would not even know you were involved in it. So, you become completely neutral. At that level, you operate. Every day is purification; more and more will leave you.
Remember that we always present ourselves as a bundle, not as human beings, a bundle of concepts, character, constitution, personality. This is how we are presenting ourselves to the world. People recognize us with it.
Think about yourself, minus all these concepts. You could be a man or a woman. You could be born anywhere; you’re not bound by space and time, a situation. Remove everything and ask yourself, who am I, actually?
Who am I actually?
That is a question, which is worth the answer.
Don’t allow the mind to answer. Experience the answer. Experience the answer to who am I minus everything; that’s you. Your name doesn’t matter; your form doesn’t matter, gender doesn’t matter, social status doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
Absolutely nothing matters. You become, or you are completely empty from all these thoughts. And as more thoughts dissolve, more clarity comes to you. Thoughts are originating out of concepts or inclinations. Thoughts are dissolving. Allow the thoughts to come and go.
People have an opinion about people. Does it really matter? It doesn’t matter. I can have any opinion about anybody, but it doesn’t change anything. There is no need for opinions; there is no need for involvement; there is no confusion. So, when you get involved, you get involved in as empty a state as possible.
That is how the problem is solved: not as a personality that you’re projecting. This is something you should understand.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan