7. The Unclutch Technique - Breaking The Pain And Joy Shafts🔗

Now, let us come to the unclutching technique. If you observe your mind, you will see that thoughts are flowing continuously inside. And the thoughts are completely independent, illogical, unconnected, and irresponsible thoughts.

These thoughts are not responsible for each other. They don't have a logical connection. They are completely independent and illogical; they are not connected. Let me give you an example: you see a dog on the street. Immediately you remember some dog which you had as a pet or a dog of which you were frightened in your young age. Then, the memory of your young age comes to your mind.

Suddenly, the thought of the teacher under whom you studied in your young age comes in. The dog which you saw on the street and the teacher whom you studied under have no logical connection! You can take a paper and a pen and write down whatever goes on inside you, without editing anything, for just two minutes.

Just transcribe whatever is going on in your mind. You will see that the thoughts flowing inside you are completely illogical, independent and irresponsible. Then what is it that connects them? What is it that connects them and gives you the kind of feeling that it is continuous and logical? The answer is 'your own mind'. For example, if you decide to connect all the suffering and depressing thoughts in your life and create an idea of a pain shaft, then you will conclude that your life itself is suffering. Then, because you have decided that your life is suffering, you will keep creating the pain shaft easily for yourself. Very rarely when you are in a high mood, in an exciting mood, or when you are really in love with somebody, or some object, or with your life, do you feel that your whole life is a joy. And those moments you connect as joyful moments, and make a joy shaft.

If you believe life is painful, you will create the pain shaft. If you believe life is joy, you will create the joy shaft. One important thing that you need to understand here: the depression which happened in you ten years ago, the depression which you experienced eight years ago, the depression which you experienced four years ago, and the depression which you experienced yesterday, are completely independent incidents. Our responses to independent incidents in our life are independent experiences, but when you connect all of them and see them together you say, 'My whole life is a depression.' This is the shaft that we must not create and this is the shaft we need to unclutch from.

This pain shaft or joy shaft is created out of your belief. If you see the exact thoughts moving as they are inside your inner space, they are neither right nor wrong. They are, that's all. It is an existence, a reality, it is just flowing. But when you create an idea, when you want to restrict them, when you want to frame them for future reference, you either frame them as a pain shaft or a joy shaft. And the difficulty is you don't stop here.

The moment you identify your life as a pain shaft, you try to break it. If you identify your life as a joy shaft, you try to elongate it. Neither can you elongate nor break the shaft because the shaft does not exist in reality. It does not exist in reality. It is just imaginary. It is just your feeling. If it exists, you can break it. It does not exist. You are trying to break something which is not there! You are trying to continuously fight with something which is not there, either the joy shaft or the pain shaft. Again and again, we try to break the pain shaft; trying to break the pain shaft brings one more pain.

The words flowing, the thoughts flowing in our inner space, creating pain shafts or creating joy shafts is what I call "Maya".

In Sanskrit, we have a beautiful word "Maya", that which is not there, but gives the suffering as if it is there. Even if it is not there, if it gives the suffering as if it were there, then it is called 'Maya'. It is not there, but it gives the suffering or the impression as if it is there. The thoughts which are arising in your being are the root cause of your suffering.

Let me give you a simple technique of unclutching. Please understand, it is a simple technique of unclutching. What do I mean by the word 'unclutching'? When you sit, there will naturally be some thoughts. When thoughts arise, usually your mind will tell you to connect it, identify it with some past pain or joy. Or it will classify them as something related to worry, or there is nothing, simply thoughts flowing. It will try to connect or classify. It will try to clutch with some of your past experiences and identify them.

Now just for few moments, try this experiment. When any thought comes, do not clutch it with your past experience, do not clutch it with your past suffering or joy. When words come out of your being, instead of giving meaning to them, just see the source of the sound. You see, sounds are rising from your inner space and the moment you give them meaning, you become materialistic.

And understand: thoughts arise only one after another in you. For one thought to arise, the previous thought should have died, else there is no way that this thought could have surfaced. If you are sitting now, and you suddenly decide to stand up, then the thought that you have to sit should have left you at that very moment, otherwise you cannot stand up, am I right?

If you apply this to every single thought of yours, you will realize that every thought simply rises and dies and the next thought rises. But what do we do? We gather all the thoughts that have died as well, and make our shafts and suffer. If you stop connecting the thoughts, your mind will disappear and you will be in pure thoughtless awareness or bliss body. If you catch this technique of uncluthing from your thoughts, you can catch the zone of thoughtless awareness or bliss!

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