by Om Swami
Without further ado, let’s begin our journey of meditation by understanding the nature of mind. For, we ought to know the proverbial nature of the beast before we can devise the ways of taming it.
The Nature of the Mind
Once upon a time, there was a lioness. She died during the course of giving birth to her cub. A small girl who had never seen a cub happened to be in the woods at the same time. She picked up the cub and brought it home. The cub was fed goat’s milk and was made to live with other goats. They all grew up together. The lion started to feed on grass like the other goats and was treated no differently. Living like the cattle, it forgot its true nature.
One day, while grazing along with the herd, the lion got separated and found itself lost in the shadows of the jungle. As he attempted to navigate his way back, he went even deeper in the woods. He felt scared in the loneliness and unfamiliar territory. Just then, he saw a wolf from a distance. The lion, unaware of his own ferocity and out of ignorance, started running for life. However, much to his surprise, all the other animals started running away when they saw him approaching. The panting lion stopped to make sense of what had just witnessed. An eerie feeling took him over; there was more to it than what met the eye. The lion began pondering over the incident and decided to explore the matter further.
He moved around a little more freely and a little less scared. Wherever he went, he saw the same reaction: all the animals would start scrambling. It went on like this before he saw a group of lions feeding on a freshly killed bull’s gore. A latent desire to partake of the meat aroused in him. His surprise elevated to the level of shock. As if automatically, he felt a strong desire to make his own lunch. Driven by his urge he hunted down a calf.
The joy he discovered in the hunting and feeding on the game far exceeded any other he had ever experienced. Moreover, an innate sense of fearlessness emerged. He felt the jungle was his home and that no one around could dare to kill him. In no time, from a meek grass feeding goat, he became the king of the jungle.
You are a lion as well, your intrinsic nature is bliss and fearlessness. But, the lion in you has started behaving like a goat. This is called conditioning. From the moment we are brought up, we are fed with beliefs and information about ourselves and others. We are constantly made aware of our shortcomings. Somehow, we are made to believe that in order to be happy we have to constantly strive for something else, we have to do better, we have to be like someone else.
We have been conditioned, inadvertently or otherwise, by the society and other evolutionary forces. Our conditioned soul is a product of the collective intelligence of the world. We, as individuals, however, are a product of our karma and our desires.
This conditioning comes to us in the form of religious, social, familial and moral values. Since eons, preceding generations have accepted such standards, mostly unquestioningly, passing them onto the successive ones.
Our conditioning makes us feel we are inadequate, lacking something. As if we must constantly improve and strive for something. As a result, a perfectly beautiful life starts to feel inadequate as we start seeking external affirmations and approvals. You would think that your dress is amazing, or that you’ve got good grades, or that you sang really well. But if your peers and loved ones feel differently, you’d suddenly feel deflated like a balloon. Somehow, their disagreement would matter to you. Somewhere you would feel that our self-assessment is not as valuable as others’ approval of you. This starts pretty early on during our childhood when we are constantly compared and ranked against others. At school, in college and then at work some third person is telling us what to or what not to do.
This leads to a mind that is eternally tossed between happiness and suffering, between pleasure and pain. The more we try to gel with the world outside and please others, somehow believing that others’ acceptance of us is a validation of our own potential, the more we start to distance from our true nature. The transmission of signal by our soul becomes weaker and weaker as we continue to move away from our true self, our real nature. Increasingly, the lion starts to think, believe and behave like a goat.
The world you see externally is merely a projection of the world within you. In fact, the world outside is an exact replica of the one within you. Your inner world is a product of your thoughts. Due to your forgotten nature, your inner world constantly gets affected by the world outside. If the inner world is in turmoil, the outer world appears just as listless and doomed. This fluctuation of emotions is a constant affair in an ordinary mind.
“Man’s mind,” said Confucius, “is more treacherous than mountains and rivers, and more difficult to know than the sky. For with the sky you know what to expect in respect of the coming of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the alternation of day and night…”5
It needn’t be this way though. For behind every feeling and experience, there is the thought. Absence of thoughts, however, does not lead to absence of feelings. On the contrary, a still mind is like the tranquil lake, it’s like the calm ocean, an absolute beauty. For thoughts are the ripples in that lake, emotions are the waves in the ocean of mind. They remain inseparable though – waves from ocean.
You look at the whole and you see the parts. You understand the parts and you grasp the whole. If you get a grip on the anatomy, construction and nature of a thought, you’ll instantly understand all that there is to understand about mind. You will immediately realize why and how meditation helps you harness your mind leading to inner peace and bliss.
The Journey of a Thought
A young man goes into the confessional box and says, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have missed Mass twice and
I slept with a girl.”
“Is that you, Josh Worth?” “Yes, Father.”
“Who was this girl you were with?”
“I’m sorry, Father, but I can’t take her name to protect her reputation.”
“Was it Katherine O’Brien?” The priest guessed because it was a small community and everyone knew everyone.
“No Father”. “Mary Board?” “No Father.”
“Was it Fiona James?”
“No Father! I can’t tell you.”
“I appreciate your determination to protect her, son,” the priest says, “but you must atone for your sins. Your penance will be four Hail Marys.”
Josh runs out to his friends who ask him, “What did you get?” “I got three very good leads!” he replies triumphantly. “Will
go and call Katherine first.”
Thoughts are never a problem until you act on them. Thoughts of lust, negativity, jealousy, envy, hatred, possessiveness are normal. For, an average human mind gets more than 60,000 thoughts in a span of 24 hours. It is but natural that a number of those thoughts are going to be undesirable. Having a bad thought doesn’t make you a bad person. No one can escape impure thoughts. We don’t have any control over our thoughts. Any thought can come and hit us from any direction. But what we do have control over is whether we want to pursue that thought or if we want to turn it into an action.
There’s no one on this planet who has never had an immoral or impure thought. Having such thoughts don’t make anyone bad, for thoughts are not good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, they are just thoughts. They take one or the other form based on how we pursue and deploy them. Let’s say, you are passing through the woods and you come across a dry and thin branch of a tree lying on the ground. You can use it as a walking stick, or as firewood, or to protect yourself, or, hopefully not, even to beat up some poor animal. What you do with the stick determines whether it is good or bad. On its own, the stick has little meaning. Similarly, the wise don’t feel guilty for having unwelcome thoughts. They know they don’t have to act on them. And by action, I’m not just referring to physical actions but mental ones too. When we cling to a thought or follow its track, we are performing a mental karma, and that, in turn, is the
seed of all physical actions.
Good meditators, or even mindful people, transcend their thoughts by simply watching them. Most thoughts are random and fickle; they are not worth pursuing. Upon close examination, you will discover that thoughts are highly ephemeral and if you don’t hold on to them, they disappear exactly like bubbles in water. Whenever you are bothered by any lingering thought, simply ask yourself the following three questions and watch it become feeble in no time:
From where has this thought originated?
Where is it traveling?
Where has it disappeared?
As you ponder on these, you begin to understand the anatomy of a thought; basically, its emptiness. They are empty. Thoughts have no definitive point of origin, no set course of travel, and no specific site of disappearance. When you see an object in a mirror, you can classify the sight as beautiful or ugly, desirable or otherwise but what happens when the mirror faces another mirror, when it looks at its own reflection, what will it see? The reflection will keep bouncing off each other infinitely. Similarly, when the mind examines itself, it starts to disappear in its own vast existence.
Mists rise from the earth and vanish into space.
They go nowhere, nor do they stay.
Likewise, though thoughts arise,
Whenever you see your mind, the clouds of thinking clear.
Space is beyond colour or shape.
It doesn’t take on colour, black or white: it doesn’t change.
Likewise, your mind, in essence, is beyond colour or shape.
It does not change because you do good or evil.
The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim
The brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun.
Likewise, eons of samsara cannot dim
The sheer clarity that is the essence of your mind.
Although you say space is empty,
You can’t say that space is “like this”.
Likewise, although mind is said to be sheer clarity,
There is nothing there: you can’t say “it’s like this”.
Thus, the nature of mind is inherently like space:
It includes everything you experience.
Stop all physical activity: sit naturally at ease.
Do not talk or speak: let sound be empty, like an echo.
Do not think about anything: look at experience beyond thought.
Your body has no core, hollow like bamboo.
Your mind goes beyond thought, open like space.
Let go of control and rest right there.7
Just like two pieces of wood can be rubbed together to produce fire and the same fire later consumes them both, intellect and concentration support the contemplative meditation. But when the fire of insight arises, it consumes both intellect and concentration, giving way to pristine awareness. This is the ultimate state for a meditator – not only understanding the nature of thoughts and rising above them, but living in complete awareness.
Like waves in the ocean disappear in the same sea they had originated from, thoughts emerge from and merge back into the same mind. Some start to surf these waves, but no matter how giant or exhilarating a wave, how beautiful the swell, how tidal the sea, how expert the surfer, the waves will toss him eventually. And this brings me to the moral of the story: there are no calming thoughts really, just like there are no stable waves.
A thought that’s appeasing today could well be disturbing tomorrow. For example, you love someone today and their thought brings you joy, but tomorrow you may fall out of love and those same thoughts of them will give you grief. A good meditator knows that thoughts, at their best, can only calm the mind temporarily and intermittently.
In the ocean of your mind, when it comes to the waves of thoughts, you have three choices: first, surf and accept the highs and lows; second, watch the waves and put up with the constant sound of the sea; and third, move away from the ocean altogether.
The lifespan of every thought, however good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, is exactly the same.
It emerges. It manifests. It disappears.
These are the only three stages in the life of a thought. If you don’t recall a thought or if you don’t pay attention to a thought, it must disappear on its own.
Thoughts that you do not let go leave an imprint on your mind.
That imprint is the residue. Meditation is the process of washing away that residue. It is the cleaning of your slate and keeping it that way. When we fail to abandon our thoughts, they assume different forms. They can become desires, expectations or emotions.
When Thoughts Become Desires
There’s a beautiful story in Durga Saptashati, a puranic text. While slaying the demons, Mother Goddess came across a particularly different and difficult type. His name was Raktabija, the one who is born from blood. Raktabija had a special boon. For every drop of his blood that would fall on the ground, one thousand more Raktabijas would manifest, and each new Raktabija would have the same boon. It was practically impossible to exterminate such a demon. As soon as he was attacked, blood would spill and thousands like him would spring forth, creating armies after armies of Raktabija in the battlefield. It was a problem unlike any other that the Goddess had encountered
A long battle ensued, after which the companion energies of Mother Goddess decided that just attacking Raktabija wasn’t enough. There had to be someone to gather and drink his blood before it spilled on the ground. A form of the goddess, Ma Kali, emerged from the forehead of the goddess. Before Raktabija’s blood could touch the ground she would lap it up with her lolling tongue. Eventually the forces of goodness triumphed over the demons.
Similar is the case with our desires, for Raktbija was nothing but a symbol of desire. For every desire we humans fulfill, a thousand more will take birth. Suppressing them is the same as attacking them. That’s not the solution. Fulfilling them is accepting your defeat at their hands, giving birth to a thousand more. Ma Kali emerging out of Devi’s forehead represents mindfulness. When we are mindful of our thoughts, actions and desire, they subside on their own.
Look around and you’ll see how each one of us is driven by our desires. The kingdom of consciousness is under siege by the desires of our mind. All that we have accumulated or hope to achieve has originated from our desires. Our unfulfilled desires froth, ferment and layer up on the tranquil surface of our mind. Unless we understand the nature of our desires, we have no hope of winning over them, they can’t be tackled individually.
They are Raktabija. We have to go to the source if it is peace and everlasting bliss we seek.
Going to the source is understanding the nature of your desires. The seed of a desire is thought. That’s the bija, seed, of this Raktabija.
Just like moisture is inseparable from water, and, heat from light, desires are inseparable from mind. For desires are but thoughts ‘un-abandoned’. And, thoughts are just that – thoughts.
They are neither good nor bad, neither sublime nor ridiculous, neither right nor wrong. All such labels are mere designations you have given them based on your conditioning. Intrinsically, thoughts are all the same – identical. It is what you do with the thought that matters than the actual thought itself.
When a thought emerges on the canvas of your mind, if you don’t drop it, its pursuit will either take the form of a desire or an emotion, positive or negative. All karma originate from thoughts. A lingering thought destabilizes your mind, disturbing your state of tranquility like the ripple in a still pond. A quiet mind remains unaffected by the fulfillment or abandonment of desires; both outcomes are perceived by the mind anyway. So, whether you want sense gratification or gratifying recognition, satisfying love or a simple laddoo, as far as mind is concerned, there is no difference.
When a desire is fulfilled, it gives you temporary joy and pleasure. The outcome is as et
hereal and elusive as the desire itself. If desires could be satisfied forever, it would not be fallacious to seek fulfillment. However, when fulfilled, countless more spring up like Raktabija. Once you understand the nature of desires, your life is simplified. While desires cannot really be classified, to aid ease and understanding, I am categorizing them for you. They are primarily of four types:
Physical Desires
All forms of sense gratifications are pure physical desires. You envisage a pleasant outcome from the fulfillment of these ones. Such anticipated pleasure prompts you to hold onto the thought of satisfying your desire. As a result, your actions, emotions and intelligence work together to attain that fulfillment. These desires can be insatiably active or eternally latent in you, or sometimes both. Whatever you enjoy through the body is basically sense gratification.
Most people expend their whole life satisfying these ones.
They experience everything through the body, live for the body and die for it. They remain faithful, obedient and unquestioning servants of the body. Their life revolves around the body’s needs for food, clothing, copulation, comfort, care and so forth. Fulfillment of physical desires is fundamentally linked to a body’s well-being. Human body, however, continues to deteriorate and many work incessantly hard to maintain it.
It is not wrong to fulfill physical desires. It’s just that everything we pursue has a price. If you are willing to pay that price, by all means you are welcome to go after these desires. Fulfillment of physical desires, however, rarely ever leads to everlasting happiness. There’s transient pleasure that fades as quickly as the skies clear after a heavy shower. When we continually work to feed our senses, driven by our physical desires, our emotional desires too multiply automatically. And this leads me to explaining the second type:
Emotional Desires
Emotional desires are directly linked to your conditioning (you may think of it as upbringing for now) and karmic residue from previous lifetimes. These are driven by our mind’s tendencies that we have been carrying over millions of lifetimes. Have you not noticed why everyone has a desire for a certain type of partner in their life? The same person who appeals to you as your soulmate could be downright repulsive for someone else. Emotional desires spring from the deepest recesses of the mind. These are not just the thoughts you’ve contemplated on consciously. They have arisen from the impressions of the subconscious. The deep desire to feel loved, to feel wanted. Need for love, reciprocation, recognition, appreciation, companionship and sharing, etc., form the tall list of emotional desires.
