Mind your Mind

Rajan Sachdev
During my visit to a school last week I noticed that as long as the teacher was present, the children were quiet and studied. As soon as the teacher left, the classroom turned into bedlam. The children started talking loudly and tossing things around amongst themselves as if there is no one to control them. And as soon as the teacher came back, all was silent; the books were in place and so were the students.
An uncontrolled mind is exactly like this. As we lose our hold on the mind, there is chaos and confusion. It is very difficult to obey this chaos, for it takes us nowhere. As soon as we gain mastery over ourselves, the mind begins to work in a more orderly fashion.
Take a good look at the mind. Examine it closely. The first thing we will come to know is that the mind has become the master – not we and not our soul! The mind says: Do this and we do it! If we dare not to, the mind creates problems. It becomes sad, and the sadness of the mind becomes our sadness.
Where can we reach by obeying this mind! Our mind is absolutely blind; it knows nothing, and yet we follow it blindly. All this is because we have forgotten that mind belongs to us and we don’t belong to the mind; and that we are the master.
Modern psychologists say that man has many minds. Man has not one mind but many. It is just as if there is one servant and thousands of masters, and each master is ordering the poor servant. Who should he obey? He is bound to go nuts. This is exactly the state of our mind. This play is going on, and we keep wandering in it as long as the mind is not within our control.
We have come to a stage where we are not master of our mind. Our thoughts are not our slaves; rather, we are the slave of our mind. We meekly follow wherever our thoughts take us; they never go where we want them to. Try to give a slight turn to even a very insignificant thought and it resists you. Tell a small thought to be quiet, and it immediately rebels.
Slavery of the mind is very dangerous, for the mind is not one. It is a crowd. One minute it orders you to be angry, the next moment it orders you to repent. One thought tells you: Enjoy the world! Another says: You must gather wealth! Even if you have to be corrupt! Another thought says: That is a sin! There are countless other thoughts and their sum total is the mind.
We never consider this situation, for it is too painful. The very thought ‘I am not my master’ is killing! How can we be the master of anything when we are not even the master of our self? What will we do to destroy this domination? We have to regain the status of being master of our mind. All sadhanas, all spiritual practices aim at only one thing: to break and destroy this domination of the mind.
If we really want to overthrow the mind’s domination, it is going to be difficult, very difficult in the beginning. One will have to be very alert and on guard, but gradually it should become easy. Watch your anger, but be firm on one point: if you really must reply to the man who has hurt you, do so when the anger is gone. Under no circumstances reply or react instantly. Try and keep your mouth shut as long as the anger lasts; answer only after the anger has long been gone! This is the only proper way. The right answer can only come in serene moments.
As we move along this path, we need to be cautious, not to take the opposite direction. For example, the mind says, ‘Be angry.’ Now if you want to do just the opposite of what the mind tells you, you will say, ‘No, I shall not be angry; rather, I shall be forgiving.’ The mind says, ‘Kill!’ and you will say, ‘No! On the contrary, I will offer my head to be chopped off.’ It is rather dangerous to do exactly the opposite of what the mind tells us.
Just as some people on this path generally do. The mind says, ‘Go and look for a woman.’ They run away to the jungle. The mind says, ‘Pursue wealth.’ They refuse to touch money. The mind says, ‘Rest.’ They stand in the burning sun. If you then practice celibacy, it will make no difference, because your celibacy will be a revolt; it will not be natural. The mind is filled with many desires and you set out to fight it. This is war! And who goes to war with his own slaves? He who fights his slave counts him his equal, and not his servant.
This is not what it should be, for we are still listening to the mind, even if we are going contrary to his directions. We do the opposite of what he says, which still leaves him the master. Understand this. It is a little complicated. The fight is still on; it has not ended.
Imagine that a slave in your house becomes the master, and you sit or stand as he orders you to. If you decide not to obey him and to do just the opposite of what he says, he is still the master; for it is he who motivates you. And if he is clever he might tell you to sit when he wants you to stand! You cannot escape him.
One can start today. The results may not come immediately, because our closeness, our association has existed for ages. Such old associations cannot be broken in a day; it will take time, but slight effort on our part will bear results, for this is a false identification. This identification with our thoughts is nothing more than our concept, and it does create all our problems.  And as our mind begins to come within our control, we gradually start becoming aware; we will find that our actual existence, our soul begins to become awakened.

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