29. Q: *Swamiji*, are thoughts a part of the mind, or are they an expression of the mind?

Your mind and your thoughts are one and the same. There is no difference between mind and thoughts. Mind is thought and thought is mind. The mind is nothing more than the collection of your thoughts, the continuous flow of ideas. And thoughts are no more than the words that you speak to yourself continuously.

When you worry, allow yourself to enter deeply into it, with acceptance and clarity. Don't be afraid to enter into it. Remember: acceptance is not impotence. Acceptance is a great meditation technique. Acceptance releases a great energy that gives you great clarity and liberation.

When you accept your worries, when you enter deeply into them, you will come to a tremendous understanding that all your worries are just your own creations. You will be able to see how your mind plays and causes tension in you.

When I tell you worry is unnecessary, you can understand it only intellectually. When it becomes your own experience, you will go beyond worries. Then depression cannot touch you. You will go beyond misery*.*

A small story:

When I was staying in Calcutta, taking classes on the Isha Vasya Upanishad, a man came to see me.

He said, 'Swamiji, I have a problem. I don't sleep well at night because I live in an area where there are many street dogs. Every night they start barking, and keep barking till sunrise. I am already a very light sleeper, and I am unable to get any rest because of this noise.'

I told him, 'Go home and try this tonight. When you hear the barking, just drop the anger, the negative feelings that rise up in you. Just listen to the barking sound without resisting. Tell yourself that the dogs are barking, that's all. Don't allow yourself to react to it. The problem is not the barking, but your resistance to it.'

The man went back and tried what I said. After a few days he came back to me and reported, 'Swamiji, I tried dropping my resistance as you said. Instead of thinking, how dare those stupid dogs spoil my sleep, I just relaxed thinking, The dogs are barking. They are spoiling my sleep… The dogs are barking… Some animals are creating some sounds… By the time I came to that sentence, I think I fell asleep. Anyway, I've been having excellent sleep all these days. Thank you Swamiji!'

This can happen with you also. Any situation can be dealt with, if you know how to drop your negativity, if you know how to drop your negative reaction to it.

But the mind is so eager to repeat familiar patterns of inner chatter. It always looks to typecast things. It all the time compares past, present and future and gives birth to worry.

Drop worry, enter into the moment

Worries are nothing but familiar dwelling patterns for our mind. These familiar patterns are called engrams in the field of human psychology. Engrams are the engraved memories of the past, which serve as an undesirable resource inside us for all our present and future actions. Because of these stored engrams, we react illogically in the present.

Why can't we take every moment as it is? Why do we need to link the present moment to the past and future? Why should we look for consistency in everything? And when there is no consistency, why is it difficult to digest? This is because we are always looking to frame things with the help of our mental makeup, with the help of our stored engrams; and when we can't, we get worried.

Have you seen me worrying any time? How many of you have asked me how I am able to be blissful at all times? The reason is, I simply live in the moment, that's all. I don't carry the past as a reference in my mind. I don't burden my mind with the future either. Things happen from spontaneity, not from patterns.

Many of you would have seen the river Ganges flow in the Himalayas. It is so beautiful. It appears serene at certain places, turbulent at other places, crystal clear at times and murky at other times. Where a person encounters it, that will be the experience he gets from it. That is spontaneity.

Can two people who encounter the river ever compare notes and complain? How foolish it would be! The river simply flows, that's all! It has no plan. Enlightened masters are like a river. They flow without a plan, just spontaneously, without a worry.

But people come and tell me, 'Swamiji, what you say and do are so contradictory!' People pass judgment on me; they say I am inconsistent. How many of you here have complained at my inconsistent words and behaviour? Come on, raise your hands!

(after a long gap, a few venture...) I am sure most of you would have had this thought at some point in time, just that only these people have had the courage to raise their hands.

Can you say that the Ganges is inconsistent? Can you say that the Ganges should flow in a more orderly fashion? No! That is the way it flows, that's all; you can't pass judgment on it. In the same way, a master also flows. You can't call me inconsistent. I live moment to moment. You live with interconnected and complicated moments. What is the result? You feel burdened and worried.

When you have so many moments weighing on you, you will definitely feel heavy. In the same way, when only the moment is on you, you will feel so light. All your worries are because you connect the present and the future with past patterns. In the whole process, you miss the present, which is actually a gift for you. You continuously miss the present for the sake of the past and the future. Finally, only the future and the past remain, never the present.

These patterns that cause the current of worry have become a life-sustaining element for you.

A small story:

• Two friends went to a cinema theatre to watch a newly released film.
• One of them noticed that the other was frequently looking at his watch.
• Finally he whispered to him, 'Are you not enjoying the film?'

The friend replied, 'I am. I am just wondering how much more time is left to enjoy.'

Most of us are like this! We are so tuned to worrying, that even if there is nothing to worry about, we worry about how long this state of no-worry is going to last! When we are enjoying ourselves, we worry about how much time is left to enjoy. How will we ever enjoy then? When you are continuously thinking this way, you are keeping yourself in the future all the time. When you do this, you have missed the pleasure of the moment!

Everyone feels important and productive when they harbor worries. Actually, the more a person worries, the more he feels good about himself because he feels he is managing so much worry! That is why most often you will see that when you talk about your worries to someone, they will say, 'Ah! This is nothing; listen to my problems; then you will know what worry is.' People feel superior in shouldering big worries!

By thinking of worries all the time, what is going to happen? Nothing. With your ten worries, an eleventh worry called depression will happen, that's all.

We worry while we work. When there is worry, you cannot work and when you are really working, you cannot worry. Where there is worry, there cannot be any creativity and where there is creativity there cannot be any worry. Creativity is God's job. When you create, you are close to God. Creativity comes from the heart. Worry comes from the mind.

Past is an unwanted baggage. Drop it.

By going behind the past or thinking about the future, you miss the present. Spirituality is all about dropping the past and living in the present. Right now, you are accumulating the past. You feel bogged down because of this.

You don't know how to unload your past. You feel that you have to carry it with you. Society has taught you that you have to carry it with you. You are taught to feel guilty if you try dropping it.

Society tells you that you are ungrateful if you drop the past. There is absolutely no need for you to carry your past with you. The people who tell you these things don't know that gratitude is something that you have to feel continuously in you towards Existence and everyone as a whole, and not something that you feel towards isolated incidents in life.

When you drop your past, the present will take you by surprise. Society always teaches you to enjoy the present as past, never as present. It teaches you to make everything a past and then enjoy it.

I have seen people who go out on holidays – they are all the time with their still camera and video camera. In the most scenic of places, instead of enjoying the nature surrounding them, they will be scrambling with their cameras to capture all the scenes.

They will then go home, wash their film rolls, sit on their sofa inside four walls and enjoy the same scenery through the camera. And they will show all the photographs to family and friends just to tell them that they have visited the places seen in the pictures. But they never enjoyed the places when they were there!

You enjoy the present after making it a past. That is why people say, 'Those were the golden days.' When the days were actually there, you would have surely not thought they were golden. At that time you would have been saying that the earlier days were golden days!

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When you are in the present, every moment will become a celebration and you will not be searching for past incidents to celebrate.

Also, it is such a waste of time dissecting the past for worries because you are a new person every moment. Every moment you are evolving; every moment you are getting updated. You are a part of Existence and Existence changes every moment. Then how can you dissect past incidents with your updated intelligence? It is totally irrelevant and meaningless.

Never analyze the past with updated intelligence. It is a totally foolish thing to do. It will only lead to more worry and guilt. Every moment you are dying and becoming a new person. This is the truth.

Have you seen any buffalo or cow worried? Have you heard of any plant that is worried? Are they not conducting their lives without a hassle? Why do you worry then? I tell you: worrying is the most unproductive habit of man.