How Does The Mind Work?

A small story:

A lady visited the doctor, a general physician and complained of a lot of pain. The doctor asked her where she experienced pain. The lady touched her right knee and said. 'It is paining here doctor.' Then she touched her stomach and said, 'It is paining here too doctor.' Then she touched her left ear and screamed, 'Here too it is paining doctor.' The doctor was watching her all the while. He then told her, 'You've got a sprain in your right hand.'

Our mind tries its best to find something to magnify and chew on. If it doesn't find anything it tries to find something out of nothing!

Most of us think that our minds are very logical. We feel that our mind is our master because of which we are able to achieve so many things. Actually, the most illogical thing. Just try this experiment. Sit down for five minutes and write down all the thoughts that come to your mind in these five minutes, honestly, without editing. Whatever thought comes, put it down. Then, read what you have written. You will realize how illogical the mind is!

We are running a mental asylum inside our heads. One moment, you would have been thinking about your workplace: then, for no reason, you will find yourself thinking about the house. The next moment, without realizing it, you will be thinking of someone in London. There is no connection, no rationale and no logic in the way our mind moves from one thought to another.

Vivekananda, an enlightened Master of modern day Bharat says beautifully, 'The mind is like a drunken monkey that has been stung by a thousand scorpions. ' Can you imagine the state of this monkev?

A monkey by itself jumps for no reason, and a sting of one scorpion is enough to make anyone jump leave alone a monkey. Imagine the state of a monkey stung by a thousand scorpions! Unimaginable is it not? While this is difficult to imagine and we feel that it is too much to comprehend, Vivekananda uses this to describe none other than our own mind within us. He is describing the mind within us with which we are trying to comprehend this very statement, the mind that we believe is our friend, philosopher and guide.

If we look deeply into our minds, we will completely agree with Vivekananda. After all, Masters never make any statements that are lesser than the truth. Only we don't understand them and therefore exclude what they are saying or interpret their words with our own mind.

Our mind works in myriad ways, truly. It is just like a monkey that jumps from one thought to another with no logical connection, with no rule or regulation, where there is only chaos and no order. And we remain faithful servants to it. If you sit down and go through each and every thought in your mind, you will realize that actually, 99% of it is wasteful; 99% is not of any use, is of no productivity; does not relate to the present moment at all.

If you look into the mind, there is only a current of thoughts, that's all. It is a mere association of thoughts, one to another. They are all parallel, unconnected thoughts, all about the past and the future. It is a general mess! Of what use is all this? The only thing it does is to damage the consciousness. The more thoughts, the more damage to the consciousness - be very clear. And the danger in this whole process is that it has become unconscious within us.

In the meditation programs, when I ask people to write down their thoughts without filtering, it is an amazing revelation to them! First, they are unable to comprehend their own mind, second they are unable to keep pace with their mind when they attempt to write. third it scares them and finally, they find it totally new although they have been with that mind throughout their lives!

Almost all our thoughts are just a race towards nowhere. It continuously creates layers and more complex layers over our consciousness. That is why very often while our consciousness is compared to a crystal clear pond, our mind is the moss that covers it. While our consciousness is compared to a clear mirror, our mind is the dust that covers it.

Why do we say this? Just think, if you only focused on the present moment, you will not have thinking to do at all. Your mind will not think at all. It will become only a tool to handle every passing moment. It will simply be a tool. It will be like a child's erasable magnetic board on which you can write a few sentences for that moment, erase them, re-write and again erase. Most of the time, the board will be empty is it not? But through that board, so much would have been transacted. And there will be no trace of any of those transactions.

While the board remains empty, so much will be happening through it. While the board remains white most of the time, just the essential lines will appear as we write on them and then erased through the slider eraser. It is a beautiful board actually. It shows how exactly one's mind should be used; how the mind should be handled, beautifully, without any strain, without any stress, just like a child's magnetic board!

From the metaphor of the board we can learn that a very small space is enough to handle large volumes of information; that it is possible to keep that space clean and beautiful always and yet transact through it; that our mind is meant to be kept clean always: that it is a thing as miraculous as the magnetic board is for a child.

And what does that small space do? It is simply available to write small statements pertaining to that moment, to handle that moment, to flow with the moment and take decisions spontaneously, and then it becomes empty until the next moment calls for it. Each instance of writing is for that moment, precious words for just that moment and then it goes away!

Part 2: Bliss is the Path and the Goal_English_part_2.md

The next moment requires different words, powerful words but different words suited to that moment. When the mind works in this fashion, the words that appear in the mind for every moment will not be dependent on the person at all! They will simply appear according to the situation, according to the requirement of that moment, driven by emptiness actually, driven by the all-pervading intelligence, and then goes away.

This is how Masters operate. That is why you can never frame them. They don't have an inner chatter at all! You act out of your inner chatter, your inner chatter decides who you are. That is why it is easy to frame you. But with a Master, there is no current of words in them that is there all the time in us. They are empty inside, blank and clean like the magnetic board. As and when things take shape, as and how things flow, some words appear on the magic board, handle the moment and disappear!

It is so beautiful, is it not? That is why, the kshana we were talking about earlier, the time gap between two thoughts is very large for them and it is infinitesimal for us. It is infinitesimal for us because there is a constant current of words in us! It is difficult to find any gap between one thought and another because they occur almost simultaneously, all inter connected even if there is no logical connection between them. The kshana is not perceivable.

There are meditation techniques that ask us to focus on the gap between one thought and another, which is based on this kshana. It is the most difficult meditation for us! We can do any other meditation but this! We will probably go insane if we try doing this. It is only then that we realize the sort of madhouse we are running in us. There is virtually no kshana in us! In trying to perceive the kshana, we will make it even smaller and non-perceivable!

By ourselves, we are a beautiful mechanism with an inbuilt intelligence. If we allow this intelligence to flower and express itself, we have fallen in tune with ourselves and with Existence, of which we are a part.

It has been researched that to emulate the parallel processing done by the human brain, to receive a piece of information, analyze, understand and respond, it would need a computer which is three floors in height and the sound which would be generated would be at least that of ten generators! We have such a powerful system within us.

So how does the mind normally work? How does this collective intelligence of the cellular svstem of our mind body entity function? How can we consciously optimize our mind body system?

Sages of ancient Bharat described the process. They described it not in physical terms but in conceptual terms. Their description enables us to understand how the mind functions. Let us now take the process of seeing, which is almost 80% of our total sensory perception.

Your eyes see me now. In Sanskrit, we call this seeing power chakshu; it is the energy behind the physical eyes; it is not a physical organ. Chakshu is a virtual digital signal processor.

Its digital signal output goes into your memory, called chitta in Sanskrit, as a digital file.

The memory starts analyzing the facts of the case; it compares the input it has received against its database. Chitta acts as a filter; it excludes first. It responds based upon comparison and elimination.

For example when you are seeing me now, it says: What I see is not an animal, it is not a rock, it is not a plant and so on. It says, na iti, na iti: not this, not this.

The partly processed filtered file then goes to manas, your mind. The manas makes a positive identification of what is seen.

The mind concludes: What you see is a human being talking to you: he is a swami; he is taking a class on spirituality, and so on. The manas concludes 'This is it'.

The object identified by the mind, the manas, then takes a quantum leap to the ego as a file.

This ego is the part similar to what has been described by Freud and others as the collective identity of the individual, where all experiential data is stored.

The ego associates the file with earlier similar memories and decides based on past experience what to do now.

For example, if you have had a good experience listening to some spiritual class earlier, if you have had some pleasant experiences with a swami earlier, you will decide that you will stay here and listen. If however, the data shows that your experience with such a person or some similar class has been bad, you immediately decide that it is better to leave, and you move.

The ego decides for us. We express that decision and act upon that decision. This zone of ego is not under the control of our conscious. logical and rational mind. It simply overrides our logic, The ego stores impressions, past memories, unfulfilled desires and various emotive reactions continuously, whether we are conscious of these experiences or not. The ego never sleeps, not even for a moment. The data stored by the ego are called samskara in Sanskrit.

Samskara are nothing but the remains, the vestiges of unfulfilled desires. When your mind leaps between the past and the future, you miss the present and are not able to live it fully. You are not able to fulfill your desires completely. These unfulfilled desires remaining in us are the samskara that drive us. They are our deep, driving force.

When you make the final decision by looking up the huge database of the unconscious, be very clear that it is the samskara that are making the decision for you. Every samskara distorts the file before the decision is taken. Every samskara writes its signature on the file before the decision is taken. When there are too many samskara, the decision is taken impatiently and impulsively and the decision is out in no time.

The Brihadaranya Upanishad says,

You are what your deep driving desire is, As is your desire, so is your will, As is your will, so is your act, As is your act, so is your destiny.

Because of all your past decisions, the present is happening and because of all your present decisions, your future will happen.

The problem is, many of your decisions are made unconsciously. So. when the situation arises. you don't take responsibility for it. You have forgotten your past decisions. This is like going to a restaurant, eating whatever you want and then when you finally get the bill, you are shocked and refuse to pay the bill saying you have not ordered for such a big bill!

You lack a certain understanding: All your present is only the result of your past decisions and all your future is only the effect of your present decisions. Be aware of your present; that is enough. There is no need to worry about the past or the future. By doing this, you will be able to design your future, because when you do this, you are doing it consciously. There is no need to be concerned about destiny and free will.

People are always concerned about free will versus destiny. I tell you: Just be in the present moment; the future will simply take shape in a beautiful way. When you are in the present totally, you will be so joyful and light; the future will not distract you at all. You will just live moment to moment without the need to worry about the future. That is the beauty of living in the present.

Buddha teaches, 'Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.'

From birth we carry mental attitudes that are called vasana. Vasana are the seeds from which the desires, unfulfilled desires of samskara spring forth. Compared to vasana as seeds, samskara can be termed as plants. These samskara drive us into action, which is our karma. Karma, in comparison to vasana as seeds and samskara as plants, are full-fledged trees.

It is something like this:

Imagine a lady walking through a shopping mall. She sees a pair of shoes on the window.

The first and second time, she just looks at them and passes by.

The desire to look at them comes from her mental make up, the vasana.

The third time she stops and thinks how good these shoes will look on her, how she can wear them to parties and so on. The vasana has now taken root and becomes a samskara, which now adds a lot more substance to the fleeting look.

After a few such encounters with the shoe, the lady buys it, creating karma.

Of course, she may wear the shoe just for a week or two weeks and then discard it. The cycle of vasana, samskara and karma start all over again when she looks at another pair of shoes.

As long as the desire is not fully satisfied with awareness, the cycle repeats. The key here is to complete it with deep awareness.

When we do anything with awareness, we will never create karma (unfulfilled actions) for ourselves. When we don't infuse awareness into all that we do, we will always have lingering desires that become our karma.

Let me explain what exactly I mean by the interconnected usage of the words 'unfulfilled actions' and 'awareness':

Let us say your boss fired you in front of the whole office. There are two ways in which you can go through the scene.

The first way is to react immediately and talk back to him in anger; you simply let go and fire and walk out. You become lop sided here: you are not balanced, you are not centered; you are swaying to one side and creating a new cycle with the boss, a new cycle of words and actions; you act out of unawareness here. When you act out of unawareness, you are simply reacting, you are not acting. be verv clear. When you don't hold your awareness with you, you simply react, iust 'out of the top of your head' and you create what is called a karmic cvcle. This is how karmic cycles start and these karmic cycles that are initiated are what are referred to as unfulfilled actions.

A karmic cycle is created by you when you act not from your core, but from your periphery and create situations that need to be completed in some way or the other, at some time or the other, in this birth or another birth. When there is an imbalance in your words and actions due to lack of inner intelligence and awareness, you create a karmic cycle.

The second way, is to remain centered in your consciousness, hold on to your awareness, watch the whole thing taking shape, just quickly become the watcher when your boss fires you. When this happens in you, there will not be any need to fire back at all. There will be no reaction because awareness is reining the whole show. When awareness reins, you can never react. You can only act and that too in a very deeply intelligent way. Your act will simply dissolve all possibilities for a karmic cycle to take shape from that scene.

When awareness is continuously there, you will never create cycles that need to be completed. Mind you, by acting out of deep awareness, don't understand it as suppressing your emotions that drive you to let go. No! It is not suppression itself is felt only when emotions are waiting to let go. With awareness, all these emotions of anger, fear, lust or greed will be reduced to a mere play of the mind and when this happens, they are no longer rearing to go and therefore there is no question of suppressing them.

So our samskara, our unfulfilled desires actually define us. They drive us. They lead our life. Samskara drive us to take illogical, unconscious and irrational decisions. For instance, a person decides to smoke knowing fully well logically that it is bad for health. He still goes ahead. He has no control over his actions; his action is driven by his samskara, his desire that is unfulfilled.

How can any person consciously send smoke into his system? The person is not conscious of what he is doing and hence does something totally against his conscious decision. He knows that smoking is injurious to health and that a lot of people have died due to smoking. But he gets an inspiration to smoke, a decision that simply overrules his logic; and he smokes. After smoking what happens? He feels guilty. That is a different matter.

These samskara come up and confuse us, they depress us, they disturb us, they stress us, they cause guilt in us and create scope for more guilt. Samskara can and will change the whole course of our life. They can create conflicts. When you live your desires fully, there are no remnants left and hence, no samskara will be there to pull you back into repeating the action so as to fulfill the desire.

The famous Hindu philosopher J Krishnamurthy says, 'Even if once in your lifetime, you can witness your emotions without moving your body and without support or suppression, you will see very clearly that samskaras lose power over you. If you support the thoughts and emotions, samskara grow stronger. If you suppress them, they lead to perversions.'

Elimination of samskara is elimination of the negative energy from within our system. One who is without samskara is fully aware: he is enlightened. Samskara keep you in bondage. They are the root cause of all suffering. When Buddha said that desires are the root cause of suffering. he was referring to the effect of unfulfilled desires that drive us irrationally, blindly, without awareness.

When you remember something that disturbs you, you create an energy clot; and when an energy clot takes shape, the space in your being reduces. When you meditate on your inner space you expand. For proper expansion to happen and for vou to experience iov, there should be no energy clots within you that disturb you; there should be no samskara.

From a young age you are taught your samskara. You accumulate them. When you are attracted to something intensely or hate something intensely you collect files on that. Understand: One kind of logic is this: All men have one head, Socrates is a man, and so you can conclude that Socrates has one head. There is another type: There are two doors; one door is open, what about the other? You cannot say anything about the other door. This second logic is the logic of intelligence. You need to be deeply aware to employ this logic successfully. If we are aware, we will never collect more and more samskara. We collect these only because we are not aware.

People ask me why they should follow a Master. I tell them, 'either follow a Master or follow your samskara.' It is a very clear choice!

Anyhow, this process of perception and identification of what we perceive, the process that happens between our eyes and our mind happens with our awareness, consciously. However, the process the file takes between our mind and our ego happens without our awareness; it happens unconsciously.

Often we decide at the ego stage against our logic, against our best interests, irrationally, dangerously. You certainly know that smoking is injurious to health based on logic but your mind takes a leap and decides without your control, unconsciously, dangerously, to smoke. The problem is, we don't even know that our unconscious mind is playing. We don't even know that our decisions are distorted by thousands of samskara in the decision making process.

When you are aware, conscious, you are in control of your actions and thoughts. Most of the time, however, it is the subconscious or unconscious mind taking decisions. This subconscious mind is like a huge database of our past experiences. Since it is just a database, it is really like a film projector. Whatever is stored in it gets projected on the screen. If you want to change the scene projected, it is of no use to catch the screen. All you need to do is to turn off the projector or change the reel being played. The subconscious mind is like an autopilot mechanism. When the autopilot mechanism is in charge, the vehicle moves without the awareness or observation of the pilot, which is the conscious mind. That is when the conscious mind is free to dream about the future or dig the past.

Most of the time, we are under the control of the unconscious mind. The perception of any incident or moment is usually intercepted at the level of the unconscious mind itself without allowing the decision to be reviewed by the conscious mind. We are not even aware that we are not in control! We hardly spend 5% of our activities using the conscious mind on a given day.

The way to get in control then is to be aware, fully conscious, so that your conscious mind is more engaged in taking decisions rather than the unconscious mind, which is not under your control. Then, you will no longer be in the grip of the past or be in the false limitations imposed by your unconscious mind taking decisions based on its programming by society and the environment.

Let us say that the process time taken for the information to travel from eve to mind is Tp. This is the time when the transfer process for the data is logical. It takes place consciously, with awareness. Now let us say that the time taken for the unconscious process, from mind to ego is Tq. Here, the data passes through samskara, which distorts the file, twists our decisions without our knowledge.

When we are driven by the unconscious mind, by the power of the samskara, we become restless. We decide without knowing what we are doing. We act without awareness. When our samskara are more, there is no patience to go through all the samskara and take a decision, so the decision is taken impulsively out of deep confusion. As soon as the information goes to the ego, it comes back with a decision, just out of the top the head.

In this case, Tq is much lesser than Tp. The leap to the ego and back is very less when compared to the time taken for the data to reach the mind from the eye. What happens here is, when faced with a decision, we feel uneasy, we feel guilty, there are many mixed emotions and past samskara waiting to put their signature on the file containing the data and so Tq is done in no time and the decision is passed. Also, when we operate in this fashion, we will feel exhausted at the end of it because of the play of our samskara upon us.

It is when the time taken for the leap to the ego and back, that is Tq, is greater than the conscious process time Tp that we are really aware of what is going on. We are then able to act above the instinct and intellect levels with pure awareness. We are then in a super conscious level and our unconscious is infused and filled with a vibrant silence and intuition instead of clogged with

samskara. We become aware of who we are. what we are and why we are doing things: what we are doing. The decisions taken at this level of intuition are total for us.

Infusing silence, bringing thoughtless awareness to your unconscious zone is your ultimate liberation. You become a videhi - one who is outside his body even when he is in his body.

At the very least, we should operate in such a way that we spend equal time in our conscious mind as we do in our unconscious, where Tp = Tq so that we perform with the power of our intellect, instead of instinct. When we perform with our intellect, our decisions will be all right but we are still not using our full potential: we are still not operating in the zone of intuition that is meant for us. We will be in a break-even state as far as our energy is concerned; we will feel neither exhausted nor rejuvenated, we will just be, that's all. But when we work in the zone of intuition, we will be rejuvenated at the end of the day. That is the scale to see in which zone we are working.

How do we reach this zone of intuition? How do we move from instinct to intellect to intuition? How do we keep the area of ego empty, free from samskara?

Meditation is the only solution. It takes us from intelligence, to the state of intuitive thinking. It creates tremendous awareness in us that sheds light upon the unconscious and burns out our samskara. Meditation leads us into intuition, into a conscious awareness of the present. without influence of the past. It creates us anew; it gives a fresh lease of life free from the past and the future, just helping us be in the present.

Meditation is the ultimate gamble that one can undertake to completely transform, to completely come out of illusions, to embark upon a journey where bliss is the path and the goal.