Wednesday, September 21, 2016

How to disentangle from mind.

Let the mind go wherever it wants to go. You don't have to pay any attention to all its wanderings. Just be the Self and don't concern yourself with the activities of the mind. If you take this attitude, the activities and wanderings of the mind will become less and less.

The mind only wanders around all day because you identify with it and pay attention to all its activities. If you could establish yourself as consciousness alone, thoughts would no longer have any power to distract you. When you have no interest in thoughts they fade away as soon as they appear. Instead of attaching themselves to other thoughts, which then spin off countless other thoughts and ideas, they just appear for a second or two and then vanish. One's vāsānas make thoughts arise. Once they have arisen, they will repeat themselves in regular chains and patterns again and again. If you have any desires or attachments, thoughts about them will be constantly appearing in the mind. You cannot fight them because they thrive on the attention you give them. If you try to repress them, you can only do it by giving them attention. And that means identifying with the mind. This method never works. You can only stop the flow of thoughts by refusing to have any interest in it.

If you remain in the source, the Self, you can easily catch each thought as it rises. If you don't catch the thoughts as they rise, they sprout, become plants and, if you still neglect them, they grow into great trees. Usually, the inattentive sādhaka only catches his thoughts at the tree stage. 

If you can be continuously aware of each thought as it rises, and if you can be so indifferent to it that it doesn't sprout or flourish, you are well on the way to escaping from the entanglements of the mind.

No comments:

Post a Comment