We are our body, mind and soul. We try to identify ourselves with either one of these or a combination. When you identify yourself with your body you are more interested in this worldly pleasures. You think that you perform all the actions and are interested in the results of it. Identification with your mind causes thought to become compulsive. Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgements and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is the screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate "other". Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance.
The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly it becomes very destructive. You are not using your mind wrongly- you usually don't use it at all. Actually it used you and this is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The mind has taken you over. So you think you are your body and are very much interested in the actions performed by it and its results. This is wrong. We have already discussed in detail how to detach yourselves from your body. The second one is thinking that we are our mind and creating a flow of thoughts. This is also wrong. Just because you can solve crossword puzzles or you can invent anything, it does not mean you are using your mind. Actually you are not interested. Let me ask you this: Can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? It means you have to switch off your mind for sometime and whenever you want to.
Are you conscious enough to do that? Or you say Oh I forgot it. Now the mind uses you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. You were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realisation that your are not possessing the entity. - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. Now we are discussing or in the process of how to detach ourselves from the mind.
The first step is to stop thinking or switch the "off" button. The second step is to realise that you are ruled by your mind or the mind uses you. So realise this that your mind uses you and observe it. You actually do not have the habit of observing yourselves. You only observe others. That is because the screen of thought separates you from others. To detach yourself from your mind stop thinking and observe your mind and realise that you are not the possessed entity. The moment you start watching (that you are thinking) or observing, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You start realising that everything arises from beyond the mind. You are awakening.
This is one way of looking inside. Looking inside is not looking inside your body. It is observing the mind and quieting it. Having the awareness that you are watching your thoughts and stopping it. Now the mind becomes still when you continuously do that. This is awakening. How to do that? How to watch the thinker? It means you are watching yourself as the third person. Always watch your thoughts, watch your actions as though somebody is doing it. You can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. I am not asking you to stop thinking completely. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns in your head perhaps for many years. Always listen to the voice in your head and be there as the witnessing presence.
When you listen to your voice listen to it impartially. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, otherwise you become the voice again and the mind will take over you. The voice is separate and you are only listening to it. Realising this sense of your own presence is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind. So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscience presence - your deeper self - behind or underneath the thought. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energising the mind through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.
When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream - a gap of "no mind". At first the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel certain stillness and peace inside you. This is the beginning of your natural state. So try and understand that we are not our body and mind. Get yourself detached from the body (read the previous blogs) and start observing your thoughts.
Will continue on this
Namasivayam.C
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