Mind is an action!🔗

THE TEN-MINUTE EXPERIMENT

Try a very simple experiment for just ten minutes. Take a sheet of paper and a pen. Sit down alone and close your eyes for a few seconds. You will see that many thoughts are rushing through your mind.

Now, open your eyes. Whatever thoughts are coming, just start writing them down.

Don't change anything, don't edit anything. As the thoughts rise, just keep writing them down. If you think no thoughts are coming, write that also. Honestly write whatever goes on inside. After ten minutes, just read all that you have written down.

You will be shocked!

Just from these ten minutes, you can get a clear picture of how your mind works.

You can clearly see that there is no logic in the way your mind works!

For example, your first thought may be of a dog you saw on the street that morning. Then somehow, you remember the dog you were afraid of when you were young, or the one dog used to play with when you were young. The next thought could be about your childhood. Then your mind goes to the teacher who taught you when you were a child. Then you

recall the house where your teacher used to live… Where is the logical connection between the dog that you saw on the street and the house of the teacher who taught you in school? But in just a few seconds, your mind has from the dog to the teacher to the house! You can see clearly that your thoughts are simply jumping from one thing to another, continuously moving from one thing to another. We can't even call this process 'thinking'! It is just 'association', that's all – and that too, not a logical association. Actually, if all your thoughts could be heard, it would sound like a conversation among the inmates of a madhouse! Understand: your mind is nothing but a constant flow of utterly disconnected, illogical thoughts. And this is the mind to which you have entrusted your life!

The biggest obstacle to understanding the nature of the mind is this: we all believe that the mind is a solid thing, a biomechanical machine, an object.

Then we search for ways to conquer the mind. Even the greatest scholars and doctors miss this truth: Mind is not a thing, as we imagine.

The Sanskrit word for mind is manas, which means, a constant happening. Mind is not an organ, it is not a machine – it is a continuous process that is dynamic and alive.

Western psychology bases all its studies of the mind on this one idea – that mind is a biomechanical machine. We all believe this – that mind is a solid thing.

Actually, mind is nothing but the continuous flow of thoughts happening in us. Thoughts do not flow through the mind, thoughts are the mind. As your thoughts are constantly changing, your mind is also in a constant state of flux. There is no such thing as a constant mind.

Because we believe that mind is a consistent phenomenon, we constantly connect all the happenings in our mind and strengthen this idea.

If you observe, thoughts arise one after another in your mind just like bubbles in a fish tank!

Just like that, something arises, then something else arises; next, something else is arising… thoughts are flowing, words are flowing. Because your mind is usually functioning at high TPS, these 'thought bubbles' follow one another in a rapid stream, creating the illusion that it is one unbroken flow.

Because you are not aware of the gaps between the thoughts, you feel that your mind is a solid phenomenon.

When you allow each thought to rise and die, you can take on any amount of stress at the physical and mental level without getting stressed out.

Your consciousness will remain light and blissful.

When we focus only on the thoughts and not the gaps of silence in between, we feel as if we are taking on too much. We start feeling burdened and stressed.

Actually, as you saw in the five-minute experiment, there is no connection at all between our thoughts! You do not know even know why one particular thought is following another. There is no logical reason.

But your intellect cannot accept that you are nothing but a bunch of independent, random, unconnected thoughts!

It is too frightening.

You are afraid to live with such an undefined mind!

We base our whole identity on our idea about our past and our future. So we cannot accept that there is no connection between our past life, our present moment and the future.

Be very clear: your idea about your life as a series of logical events exists only in your mind. There is no logic in Existence!

But we try to 'make sense' of our mind by creating a false connection between these disconnected thoughts

We create an imaginary shaft of pain or joy to connect our thoughts, and think we are giving meaning to our life.

In the picture, these different thoughts are represented by different shapes of varying lengths, breadths, and colors. Each thought is about a separate incident in your life. Some thoughts are memories of joyful events, some are painful, some are a mix of both. Your life is a mixture of some joy, some suffering, some guilt, some pain… But when you recall your past, you selectively recall only the inci dents related to suffering and create a 'shaft', a connection between them. By connecting all these memories with a 'pain shaft', you come to the conclusion that your life is nothing but suffering!

For example, the depression that you experienced ten years ago, the depression that you experienced five years ago, the depression that you experienced three months ago and the depression that you experienced yesterday, are completely unconnected and independent incidents!

All these happened for different purposes, different reasons, at differ ent times and situations.

But what do you do?

You connect all these unconnected incidents and say, 'My life itself is nothing but depression.'

Understand, in each case of depression, the reasons would have been different, the situations would have been different. But when you connect all these low moods and decide, 'My life is full of depression,' you have created hell for yourself!

The moment you start believing that your life is depression, your life indeed becomes depression. Once you create this pain shaft, you set the scene for more and more painful incidents to be added to your life! Whenever you believe in something, you start unconsciously collecting more and more experiences and arguments to strengthen that belief.

Whatever we believe to be our past, we reproduce exactly that in the future.

We all know from our past experience that we can't fly. How can we believe that we can start flying from tomorrow onwards? We can't!

Whatever we believe to be our past, only that we will believe can be our future.

So once we start believing that our past was filled with depression, we have the unconscious faith that our future will also be depression. When we believe that the mind is consistent, a solid thing, we have already created hell for ourselves.

Very rarely, some people connect all the happy memories of their past and create an imaginary 'joy shaft'. These people believe that their life has always been a joy. They are also making the same mistake. Understand, they are as far away from the truth as the opposite group!

If you have a clear picture about your past, it will become a solid experience. It will not be a load; it will become strength. Undigested past is a load, digested past is strength. We don't digest our past. It just stays on us like a load, like a headache. When you connect all the painful incidents and create a pain shaft, you create an enemy who does not exist and spend your life start fighting with him.

There is a song that children sing:

As I was coming down the stairs I met a man who wasn't there He wasn't there again today I wish that man would go away!

Understand, you are doing the same thing! You are fighting with an imaginary enemy.

If you believe that your life is suffering, you will be struggling to break free of this suffering. First you create the belief, then you try to break free of it!

Unconsciously, you will be continuously adding to the pain shaft, but consciously you will be trying to break it.

In the same way, those who believe that life is a joy will be continuously trying to elongate the joy shaft.

This is equally foolish.

Can you hold on to your joyful experiences always? No! They won't stay forever.

Even if you try to reproduce the same ambience, the same people, the same place, even the same temperature again and again, you cannot continuously experience the same joy.

The main reason for people falling into addiction is this: believing that the joy or ecstasy they experienced at some time in the past came from a particular object or person or situation, they continuously try to reproduce the same thing again and again, even though the same joy or experience does not come back again.

Some people are addicted to partying, some people are addicted to smoking, some people are addicted to drinking, and some people are addicted even to the daily newspaper!

The simple truth is, you can neither break the pain shaft, nor can you add to the joy shaft, because both the shafts do not exist! Both are created just by your selective memory.

Understand, it is not just your state of mind that is affected by this attitude. Your very body, even your chronic physical diseases are consequences of this imaginary pain shaft!

People come and tell me,

'Swamiji, I have been suffering from pain in the knees for the last twenty years.'

No, it cannot be!

Please, understand, it cannot be. I am not disregarding your suffering by saying that all your problems are in your head.

I am just telling the truth: all your problems are in your head!

Whether you believe it or not, medical science has proved that your body continuously rejuvenates itself. Do you know, once in 47 days, your intestine gets replaced completely!

Your brain cells, your skin, your internal organs are all replaced, cell by cell, within a particular number of days.

So if you are carrying the same disease for years, it means only one thing: you are carrying it in your mind.

Your unconscious belief that your disease is a continuous experience forces your mind to bring back the same pain and disease again and again.

When we worked on the body, we saw the power of intention. If a simple intention can change the very cellular structure of your body, why can't it heal your chronic diseases? All you have to do is allow the self-healing to happen naturally.

Unclutch and be free

The moment you hear this new word, 'unclutching', your mind will leap to the conclusion: Oh, this looks like a new technique. Swamiji is asking us to do something new!

Understand, I am not asking you to do anything.

I am only asking you to do stop doing whatever you are doing right now! I am only asking you to stop connecting your thoughts and creating suffering for yourself.

Actually, you don't have to do anything to be unclutched.

Unclutching is your very nature!

By your very nature, you are a free, unclutched, blissful being. Just the simple understanding of how your mind is playing tricks on you is enough!

Just the awareness of how you are continuously connecting your thoughts is enough to liberate you from both the pain shaft and joy shaft. It is not a technique for you to sit down and do for a particular period of time. It is a continuous, 24-hour process.

If you are unable to keep this awareness continuously alive, you have to keep returning to it again and again. That is when you call it a practice!