Part 2: Meditation Book - Leading You To Bliss🔗

What exactly do I mean by this word 'unclutching'?

Just sit silently and watch your mind.

You will see so many thoughts coming up.

Your first instinct will be to connect all these thoughts together. Unconsciously, you struggle to make some logical connection between your thoughts.

Understand: your thoughts are not holding on to you, as you imagine. It is you who are clutching onto them and connecting them! When the thoughts come up, do not try to connect them, to give meaning to them.

The moment you give meaning to the words that your mind is throwing up, either you will try to suppress them or you will try to execute them. Or else, you will try to go beyond them – which is just one more thought!

Instead, just remember, 'Let me disconnect from this thought. I am not going to empower this thought by following it, or by fighting it. Let me unclutch from it.'

Again, in two seconds, another thought will come up. Again say, 'Let me unclutch.'

After few minutes, you will see you are continuously repeating the thought 'unclutching': 'I am unclutching,' 'I am unclutching'… Now, unclutch from that thought too!

When a thought arises in you, instead of giving meaning to it, just unclutch from it, just relax into its source. Relax into the silent space inside from which the thought arises.

Whenever you remember, unclutch from yourself. Unclutch from the very idea you are carrying about yourself.

For ten days, try this continuously, whether you are eating, driving, whatever you are doing. Whenever the thoughts arise, unclutch again and again, come back and rest.

If it does not change your life in ten days, you can forget about it. But I tell you, it will work! I have seen how it can just transform your life.

When you continuously turn your awareness to your inner space, you will realize a great truth: no thought, however strong, can have total power over your inner space! We always think that our mind is too powerful to control. We live in terror of our desires and our fears! We feel we can never escape from our suffering.

Be very clear: even if you want to, even if you try consciously, you cannot possess or hold onto your suffering!

Understand, this is a subtle truth. Even if you try to hold onto your suffering, you cannot - because continuously, your suffering is also replaced by other thoughts. Even the worst suffering, the worst depression, the worst fear, is continuously being replaced with new thoughts.

Fortunately, you can have only one thought at a time.

So if you feel your mind is too powerful to conquer, just face it one thought at a time!

The moment a new thought is enters inner space, it means that the earlier thought has already lost its influence over you.

BOX:

They say you can't step into the same river twice.

I tell you, you can't step into the same river even once! By the time you put your foot into the water and it touches the bed, the water has already flowed on!

This understanding is what I call a click, an initiation.

This single understanding can totally transform the way you handle your mind.

It is the key to go beyond all your fears, all your worries, all your phobias!

You have already seen that each and every thought is being constantly replaced by others in your inner space.

Now, all you need to do is repeat this process consciously! Can you say that this is difficult?

Actually, you cannot even say that it is easy – because even 'easy' means it need a little effort. But this process is already happening in you, constantly, naturally.

Now just be aware that it is happening, that's all.

Once you realize that a thought can only occupy your inner space for a few seconds, will you be afraid of it anymore?

Will you respect a phobia that can be wiped out in a moment by another thought?

For instance, if the thought of death comes up, why should you be afraid?

Simply replace it, that's all!

A person once came to me and said,

'Swamiji, I am haunted by the fear of death. Please tell me a way to come out of it!

I told him, 'Every time the fear of death comes up, just decide to have a cup of coffee.'

He was shocked!

He said, 'What do you mean, Swamiji? How can that help me?'

I said, 'The moment you are able to think of having a cup of coffee, it means the thought about death fear has already left your inner space. Am I right?'

Then he said, 'No, no, Swamiji, it looks too simple! And even if I do that, the death fear will come back! Then what should I do?'

I said, 'If it comes back, have one more cup of coffee, that's all!'

He protested, 'No, no, you don't understand how serious this is for me. You are playing with me.'

I said, 'I am not playing with you. Now you know the method how to replace the death fear once; do the same thing again and again, that's all.'

Why are you afraid that you will bring your old thought back? It is like trashing your e-mails and then bringing them back from the trash bin.

Why would you do that?

Relax.

You have the intelligence and the independence to replace any suf fering, any fear, any negativity that enters your inner space.

If a thought can be replaced once, it means that it can be replaced as many times as it comes. If you can replace it ten times, the eleventh time the thought will not arise; the frequency will come down. This is the truth.

Fortunately, you have a pure inner space which can never be cor rupted by the thoughts that flow through it.

Your inner space is simply like a screen on which your thoughts are projected for a few moments and then fade out. If you project a scene of fire on a cinema screen, will the screen itself get burnt? No!

In the same way, your inner space can never be polluted or possessed by any particular idea or thought.

Understanding this deeply can completely liberate you from all the sufferings you create for yourself. It can bring tremendous self-healing to you, tremendous freedom, tremendous courage and confidence. If this one truth clicks, it can destroy the root of ignorance, the root of the mind. Nothing else is needed.

You are not needed to run your life!

Unclutching is a natural process that is going on in your inner space every moment. But the moment you hear the word, a powerful fear comes up! Because deep inside, you realize that living in an unclutched manner means living without the mind. And you are afraid to live in such an undefined way! Without your mind, you are terrified that you will lose your identity. So you ask, If I constantly live in an unclutched manner, how will I run my life? How will I handle my job? Who will maintain my family?

Who will pay my bills?

But your actual question is, if I live without mind, what will happen to my identity?

You are not even so worried about losing your life, as you are about losing your identity. You don't realize that your identity is nothing more than a bunch of ideas you have about yourself!

Don't think that the mind only filters and distorts the external reality that we perceive. Your very identity is nothing but a few ideas about yourself that you have chosen to pick up and nurture.

And all your life, you have struggled to protect your identity - both your outer-world identity and your inner-world identity.

Understand, you are not carrying a single integrated sense of identity, as you imagine!

Each of us carries a number of distinct identities.

Of these identities, there are two which are always in conflict with each other.

One is called ahaṅkāra - the identity that you project to the outer world. The other is mamakāra - the identity which you believe in your heart to be the real you.

Ahaṅkāra, how you project yourself, will always be much more than what you actually are. Mamakāra, what you believe as yourself, will always be much less than what you actually are.

Your so-called identity is nothing but a struggle between your ahaṅkāra and your mamakāra.

In the world, we carry a superiority complex, but in our hearts, we all carry a deep inferiority complex.

Both these identities are constantly in conflict with each other.

That is why we have to be so careful when we talk to anyone – because we never really talk what we think.

The enlightened master Sri Ramakrishna says, if the way from your heart to your mouth is a straight line, you are living a spiritual life. He means that when we can directly express what we feel in our heart, that is true spirituality.

Understand, this is not simple morality.

You will have the courage to speak exactly what you feel only when there is no conflict between your ahaṅkāra and your mamakāra, only when you go beyond these two identities.

As of now, your thoughts are governed by your inner identity, while your words are governed by your outer identity. Your whole life is nothing but the fight between these two identities.

What you don't understand is, neither of these identities is the real you!

The reality, the real you, is much more than these two identities. You are beyond these two identities.

As long as you are swinging between these two identities, you are caught in saṃsāra. When you go beyond these identities, you enter the space of enlightenment.

But you are afraid to live without identity!

I tell you, don't bother about these hypothetical fears.

Mind exists only on these hypothetical fears!

Have the courage to live in an unclutched way.

Just opening up to the truth, though it feels like suffering in the initial level, will always lead you to greater awareness and joy, because sat, by its very nature, leads to chit and ānanda. By its very nature, the truth (sat) leads to awareness (chit), and awareness (chit) leads to bliss (ānanda).

Understand, your being does not need your mind to run your body. When you trust your being instead of your mind, you will see an unchanging, authentic Self arise in you.

Your life will unfold in a more spontaneous, joyful, intelligent way. This is what I call 'living enlightenment'.

Please be very clear, your life does not happen because of you. Your life happens in spite of you!

Only if you have suffered enough in your life with your mind, you will understand what I am saying.

Only if you come to the verge of suspecting your own identity, can you understand.

What you think of as your identity is not needed to run your life!

Your innate intelligence, your prārabdha (bio-memory), is powerful enough to handle your life using your body and your mind.

Your bio-memory is intelligent enough to maintain your body, expand your wealth and take care of your life.

Trusting this truth in every moment is what I call bhakti, devotion. An incident from my wandering days:

When I was wandering in the villagers of northern Bharat, I had often noticed the villagers using a novel trap to catch birds.

They suspend a stick horizontally from the branch of a tree. The stick will be hanging from the tree by a rope tied around its middle, that's all. This stick is the trap! You must be wondering how a stick can trap a bird!

Understand, when this stick is hanging freely, it is in a horizontal position.

When a bird comes and sits on one side of the stick, the stick goes down on that side because of the weight if the bird. Like a see-saw, one side of the stick goes up, the other goes down, and the stick becomes almost vertical.

The bird will end up hanging topsy-turvy, upside down!

The poor bird is terrified of hanging upside down. But it thinks that if it lets go of the stick, it will fall head-first onto the ground and die! I have seen birds clutching at the stick for hours together, afraid to let go. It will be fluttering its wings, shaking its whole body, trying its best to get back to the earlier position. But it won't dare let go of the stick!

Have you ever heard of a bird falling and breaking his head and dying?

No!

But the foolish bird does not know that if he just lets go, he can fly…! He can be liberated.

After a few hours, the hunter comes along leisurely, simply catches hold of the bird and puts it in his cage.

Understand: this is the exact story of you and your mind! Just like the bird, you are hanging onto the very thing that is putting you into suffering!

Because the bird feels that the stick is its security, it hangs onto the stick. But when the hunter comes, not only does the bird lose the stick, but it is captured and caged too.

In the same way, you hold onto your mind, onto your life. You think these things are your security. But when Yama, Death, comes, not only does all your so-called security become worthless, you are also put to death.

Rarely, a bird which was once stuck in the trap but had the courage to let go and open up, comes back to save the other birds. It nudges the bird which is hanging upside down, saying, 'Let go! Do not be afraid. Once, I was in the same state as you. But when I relaxed my hold, I just started flying! I became liberated. All it will take you to regain your balance is a few seconds. Have courage and do it.'

Since the bird is hanging topsy-turvy, when it lets go of the stick, maybe for a couple of seconds it will start falling. Then it will just simply turn upwards and start flying. Courageously facing those few seconds, that chaos, is what I call tapas.

When you unclutch, there will be a revolution in your life, your thinking, your decision-making, your lifestyle. Courageously going through that transformation is tapas.

Understand, if the bird lets go, if it relaxes, it will be soon enjoying its freedom.

If you have the courage to let go, you can become a Paramahamsa this very moment.

I tell you this boldly with the courage, the authenticity, the Truth of my own experience.

When the words come from the inner space of genuine experience, even if your logic is fighting them, don't bother. You will have the experience anyway.

Whatever arises from the space of Truth will touch the same space within you - your true Self, your being.

All you need to do is just let go, and you will live like a Paramahamsa.

Life lived in an unclutched way is what I call 'living enlightenment'. May you all live enlightenment!