A
The relentless trolling of the mind, like living in a house with all the water faucets fully open, is one of modern humanity’s most debilitating conditions. Medical science tells us that one gram of brain matter burns as many calories as 22 grams of muscle at rest, hence diversion through continuous rumination is expensive indeed and depletes the mind and body, draining it of the vitality necessary for living a full and meaningful life.
A
Bhagavan comments:
The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego. The ego, if sought, will vanish automatically. The ego and the mind are the same. The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise
A
An ill-regulated mind is its own punishment, said the fourth-century saint, Augustine. But what is an irregulated mind? It is a mind that is compulsive in its activity and does not seem to know where it is going or why. If constant flitting and shallow processing hinders meaningful engagement with the world internally and externally, they are born of a continuous stream of thoughts that run through the mind in an unceasing internal dialogue. In more extreme moments the mind races down the highways of our life at high speed unable to slow down for fear of not racing ahead.
A
In the fast-paced modern world filled with multitasking, information overload, image saturation, and device-driven overstimulation, maintaining sustained attention on anything for long is made challenging. But what if all this trouble were not dependent on external conditions? What if all the noise of the mind were not coming from the world, but were coming from within? What if the means of managing the world’s encroachment in our lives starts with us?
A
If we see ourselves as ones afraid in a world we never made11, as the line goes, we may imagine it to be the world’s fault. But Bhagavan reminds us that misery is only unwanted thought 12. If you clean up the mess within, the world shines. On the other hand, Bhagavan says, if you go the way of your thoughts, you will be carried away by them and you will find yourself in an endless maze. 1
A
Mental chatter is a proliferative chain of reactivity. Reactivity in the mind is self-propelling and mostly unconscious. It is moreover sensitive to any effort to compel it to stop. Such an effort could be seen as one more reactive moment in the chain, ironically reinforcing the proliferation. Our job is to make use of Bhagavan’s inquiry to investigate the chain as a whole, as well as investigating discrete episodes within it, namely thoughts and images. In this way, we can slow it down. Investigate and the thoughts will cease,15 Bhagavan says.
A
We make our inquiry pinpointed to see if we can discover more essential, fundamental causes for discrete elements in the chain, examining very patiently its component parts. When the pace of successive thoughts triggered by the previous thought goes too fast, we pan back and observe the chain as a whole: who or what is driving this? Sometimes it is already enough just to observe that we are caught up in a chain of reactivity. If we can gently slow the pace of mentation, remembering to make a note that the chain is not myself—not the Self—we find we are enabled to disentangle some of the nexuses of accumulated thoughts and samskaras that are at the root of the cycle. If, as has been said, analysis is paralysis, we avoid speculating in an analytical way but merely observe the unfolding sequence and inquire into its sources.
A
If a man considers he is born he cannot avoid the fear of death. Let him find out if he has been born or if the Self has any birth. He will discover that the Self always exists, that the body which is born resolves itself into thought and that the emergence of thought is the root of all mischief. Find wherefrom thoughts emerge. Then you will abide in the ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth or the fear of deatH
A
Spiritual Instructions: Chapter 2, §10
Thoughts in the Mind
Why do thoughts of objects arise in the mind even when there is no contact with external objects?
All such thoughts are due to latent tendencies (purva samskaras). They appear only to the individual consciousness (jiva) which has forgotten its real nature and become externalised. Whenever particular things are perceived, the enquiry “Who is the one that sees them”? should be made; they will then disappear at once.
No comments:
Post a Comment