Mind is an instrument, one that can be used, but as you do discover who uses it hidden deep within you, who has entered your house like a thief at night and taken over your household, who connects and collects and rewires for its own sake you regain the strength and will power to clean your house ready to receive .
\nWhile he lives where you cannot yet reach, thinking cannot be stopped. That is not to say that it will be stopped, it will stop of its own accord, this is important to be understood, otherwise you\u2019ll go mad chasing your mind.
\nNo-mind does not arise by stopping thinking. When the thinking is no more, no-mind is. The very effort to stop will create more anxiety, it will create conflict. You will be in a constant turmoil within, which is not going to help.<\/p>\n
And even if you succeed in stopping it forcibly for a few moments, it is not an achievement at all \u2014 because those few moments will be almost dead, they will not be alive. You may feel a sort of stillness, but not silence, because a forced stillness is not silence. Underneath it, deep in the unconscious, the repressed mind goes on working as it is triggered by ego who recognises of itself as each input through the senses cause a vibration \/ frequency which we can be aware of as an emotion, but usually only when it made a mental connection are you aware of it. But often it does only do so very subtle, even the words you read are linked and are responsive due to attachments. So, there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops \u2014 that is certain. It stops of its own accord. So what to do? \u2014 Watch \u2014 don\u2019t try to stop. There is no need to do any action against the mind. In the first place, who will do it? It will be ego fighting ego itself. You will divide your mind into two; one that is trying to boss over \u2014 the top-dog \u2014 trying to kill the other part of itself, which is absurd. It is a foolish game. It can drive you crazy. Don\u2019t try to stop the mind or the thinking \u2014 just watch it, allow it. Allow it total freedom. Let it run as fast as it wants. You don\u2019t try in any way to control it. You just be a witness. Not following it, or attaching to it.<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t watch like an enemy, because if you look at the mind like an enemy, you cannot watch. You are already prejudiced; you are already against. And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy you never look deep, you never look into the eyes. You avoid! Watching the mind means: look at it with deep love, with deep respect, reverence \u2014 it is God\u2019s gift to you! Nothing is wrong in mind itself. Nothing is wrong in thinking itself. It is a beautiful process as other processes are. Clouds moving in the sky are beautiful \u2014 why not thoughts moving into the inner sky? Flowers coming to the trees are beautiful \u2014 The river running to the ocean is beautiful \u2014 why not this stream of thoughts running somewhere to an unknown destiny? Look with deep reverence. Don\u2019t be a fighter \u2014 be a lover. Watch! \u2014 the subtle nuances of the mind; the sudden turns, the sudden jumps and leaps; the games that mind goes on playing; the dreams that it weaves \u2014 the imagination, the memory; the thousand and one projections that it creates. Watch! Standing there, aloof, distant, not involved, by and by you will start feeling\u2026 The deeper your watchfulness becomes, the deeper your awareness becomes, and gaps start arising, intervals. One thought goes and another has not come, and there is a gap. One cloud has passed, another is coming and there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses of no-mind, you will have the taste of no-mind. Call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly, you see penetratingly. The whole existence becomes transparent. In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what samadhi is. Small pools of silence \u2014 they will come and they will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track \u2014 you start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it; when an interval passes, you watch it. Clouds are also beautiful; sunshine also is beautiful. Now you are not a chooser. Now you don\u2019t have a fixed mind: you don\u2019t say, \u201cI would like only the intervals.\u201d That is stupid \u2014 because once you become attached to wanting only the intervals, you have decided again against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, not attaching. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen, you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings. Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go \u2014 wherever they want to go. Just don\u2019t attach to them, do not identify them as your own.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t try to manipulate and don\u2019t try to direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom. Don\u2019t cling to them. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small satori\u2019s. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; there will be no traffic \u2014 a total silence, undisturbed. When the bigger gaps come, you will not only have clarity to see into the world \u2014 with the bigger gaps you will have a new clarity arising \u2014 you will be able to see into the inner world. With the first gaps you will see into the world: trees will be more green than they look right now. You will be surrounded by an infinite music \u2014 the music of the spheres. You will be suddenly in the presence of God \u2014 ineffable, mysterious. Touching you although you cannot grasp it. Within your reach and yet beyond. With the bigger gaps, the same will happen inside. God will not only be outside, you will be suddenly surprised \u2014 He is inside also. He is not only in the seen; He is in the seer also \u2014 within and without. By and by\u2026 But don\u2019t get attached to that either. Attachment is the means through which ego triggers the mind to continue. Non-attached witnessing is the way to stop it without any effort to stop it. And when you start enjoying those blissful moments, your capacity to retain them for longer periods arises. Finally, eventually, one day, you become master. Then when you want to think, you think; if thought is needed, you use it; if thought is not needed, you allow it to rest. Not that mind is simply no more there: mind is there, but you can use it or not use it. Now it is your decision. Just like legs: if you want to run you use them; if you don\u2019t want to run you simply rest \u2014 legs are there. In the same way, mind is always there. When I am talking to you I am using the mind \u2014 there is no other way to talk. When I am answering your question I am using the mind \u2014 there is no other way. I have to respond and relate, and mind is a beautiful mechanism. When I am not talking to you and I am alone, there is no mind \u2014 because it is a medium to relate through. Sitting alone it is not needed. You have not given it a rest; hence, the mind becomes mediocre. Continuously used, tired, it goes on and on and on. As ego sees it as an instrument also, to guide you to do its bidding. Day it works; night it works. In the day you think; in the night you dream. Day in, day out, it goes on working. If you live for seventy or eighty years it will be continuously working. Look at the delicacy and the endurability of the mind \u2014 so delicate! In a small head all the libraries of the world can be contained; all that has ever been written can be contained in one single mind. Tremendous is the capacity of the mind \u2014 and in such a small space!<\/p>\n
And such a servant! \u2014 for seventy, eighty years. And then too, when you are dying your body may be old but your mind remains young. Its capacity remains yet the same if not effected by illness. Sometimes, if you have used it rightly, it even increases with your age! \u2014 because the more you know, the more you understand, the more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes, and the more ego gets control. When you die, everything in your body is ready to die \u2014 except the mind. When ego is its ruler we say mind leaves the body and enters another womb, because it is not yet ready to die. The rebirth is of the mind. Once you have attained the state of samadhi, no-mind, then there will be no rebirth. Then you will simply die. And with your dying, everything will be dissolved \u2014 your body, your mind\u2026 only your witnessing soul will remain. That is beyond time and space. Then you become one with existence; then you are no more separate from it. The separation comes from ego\u2019s attachments, the mind its instrument. But there is no way to stop it forcibly \u2014 don\u2019t be violent. Move lovingly, with a deep reverence \u2014 and it will start happening of its own accord. You just watch. And don\u2019t be in a hurry. The modern mind is in much hurry. It wants instant methods for stopping the mind. Hence, drugs have appeal. Mm? \u2014 you can force the mind to stop by using chemicals, drugs, but again you are being violent with the mechanism. It is not good. It is destructive. In this way you are not going to become a master. You may be able to stop the mind through the drugs, but then drugs will become your master \u2014 you are not going to become the master. You have simply changed your bosses, and you have changed for the worse. Now the drugs will hold power over you, they will possess you; without them you will be nowhere. Meditation is not an effort against the mind. It is a way of understanding the mind, what drives it and how it works. It is a very loving way of witnessing the mind \u2014 but, of course, one has to be very patient. This mind that you are carrying in your head has arisen over centuries, millennia. Your small mind carries the whole experience of humanity \u2014 and not only of humanity: of animals, of birds, of plants, of rocks. You have passed through all those experiences. All that has happened up to now has happened in you also. In a very small nutshell, you carry the whole experience of existence. That\u2019s what your mind is. In fact, to say it is yours is not right: it is collective; it belongs to us all. Modern psychology has been approaching it, particularly Jungian analysis has been approaching it, and they have started feeling something like a collective unconscious. Your mind is not yours \u2014 it belongs to us all. Our bodies are very separate; our minds are not so separate. Our bodies are clear-cutly separate; our minds overlap \u2014 and our souls are one. Bodies separate, minds overlapping, and souls are one. I don\u2019t have a different soul and you don\u2019t have a different soul. At the very centre of existence we meet and are one. That\u2019s what God is: the meeting-point of all. Between the God and the world \u2014 \u2018the world\u2019 means the bodies \u2014 is mind. Mind is a bridge: a bridge between the body and the soul, between the world and God. Don\u2019t try to destroy it! Many have tried to destroy it through Yoga. That is a misuse of Yoga. Many have tried to destroy it through body posture, breathing \u2014 that too brings subtle chemical changes inside. For example: if you stand on your head in shirshasan \u2014 in the headstand \u2014 you can destroy the mind very easily. Because when the blood rushes too much, like a flood, into the head \u2014 when you stand on your head that\u2019s what you are trying to do\u2026. The mind mechanism is very delicate; you are flooding it with blood. The delicate tissues will die. That\u2019s why you never come across a very intelligent yogi \u2014 no. Yogis are, more or less, brainless. Their bodies are healthy \u2014 that\u2019s true \u2014 strong, but their minds are just dead. You will not see the glimmer of intelligence. You will see a very robust body, animal like, but somehow the human has disappeared. Standing on your head, you are forcing your blood into the head through gravitation. The head needs blood, but in a very, very small quantity; and very slowly, not flood like. Against gravitation, very little blood reaches to the head. And that, too, in a very silent way. If too much blood is reaching into the head it is destructive. Yoga has been used to kill the mind; breathing can be used to kill the mind. There are rhythms of breath, subtle vibrations of breath, which can be very, very drastic to the delicate mind. The mind can be destroyed through them. These are old tricks. Now the latest tricks are supplied by science: heroine, ecstasy, and others. More and more sophisticated drugs.<\/p>\n
I am not in favour of stopping the mind. I am in favour of watching it. It stops of its own accord \u2014 and then it is beautiful. When something happens without any violence it has a beauty of its own, it has a natural growth. You can force a flower and open it by force; you can pull the petals of a bud and open it by force \u2014 but you have destroyed the beauty of the flower. Now it is almost dead. It cannot stand your violence. The petals will be hanging loose, limp, dying. When the bud opens by its own energy, when it opens of its own accord, then those petals are alive. The mind is your flowering \u2014 don\u2019t force it in any way. I am against all force and against all violence, and particularly violence that is directed towards yourself. Just watch \u2014 in deep prayer, love, reverence. And see what happens! Miracles happen of their own accord. There is no need to pull and push. You ask: How to stop thinking? I say: Just watch, be alert. And drop this idea of stopping, otherwise it will stop the natural transformation of the mind. Drop this idea of stopping! Who are you to stop? At the most, enjoy. And nothing is wrong \u2014 even if immoral thoughts, so-called immoral thoughts, pass through your mind, let them pass; nothing is wrong. You remain detached. No harm is being done. It is just fiction; you are seeing an inner movie. Allow it its own way and it will lead you, by and by, to the state of no-mind. Watching ultimately culminates in no-mind. No-mind is not against mind: no-mind is beyond mind. No-mind does not come by killing and destroying the mind: no-mind comes when you have understood the driver behind the mind and the mind itself so totally that thinking is no longer needed \u2014 your understanding has replaced it. That wisdom that does not need thinking. Only a tool you can use.<\/p>\n
Mind is a tool that can gather knowledge used to be in this world, but it is ego that controls it due to emotional attachment and identification, I am those thoughts, I am those feelings, you are NOT. When ego realises you stop attaching it will try its utmost best to attract your attention, but let go and it will stop causing feelings and thoughts to arise. And it will stop. This cleaning up I talked about is not an activity, not with other thoughts overriding it but the light of truth that is your awareness that knows what is not.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Moshiya van den Broek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mind is an instrument, one that can be used, but as you do discover who uses it hidden deep within you, who has entered your house like a thief at night and taken over your household, who connects and collects and rewires for its own sake you regain the strength and will power to clean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":296,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-299","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300,"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/299\/revisions\/300"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truth-revelations.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}