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 ma-chine, 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 hap-pening. 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 hap-pening 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 con-stantly 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 con-nection 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 mis-take. 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:

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 continu-ously 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 continuous-ly 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.

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.

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!

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 pos-sessed 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.

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 ahankara - the identity that you project to the outer world. The other is mamakara - the identity which you believe in your heart to be the real you. Ahankara, how you project yourself, will always be much more than what you actually are. Mamakara, 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 ahankara and your mamakara. 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 – be-cause 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 ahankara and your mamakara, 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 samsara. 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 ananda. By its very nature, the truth (sat) leads to awareness (chit), and awareness (chit) leads to bliss (ananda).

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 prarabdha (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, ex-pand 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 India, 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!