Words from the Master

Yes…you want to clarify anything?

Swamiji, are thoughts a part of the mind, or are they an expression of the mind?

Your mind and your thoughts are one and the same. There is no difference between mind and thoughts. Mind is thought and thought is mind. The mind is nothing more than the collection of your thoughts, the continuous flow of ideas. And thoughts are no more than the words that you speak to yourself continuously.

When you are worrying, allow yourself to enter deeply into it, with acceptance and clarity. Don’t be afraid to enter into it. Remember: acceptance is not impotence. Acceptance is a great meditation technique. Acceptance releases a great energy, gives you great clarity and liberation.

When you accept your worries, when you enter deeply into them, you will come to a tremendous understanding that all your worries are just your own creations. You will be able to see how your mind plays and causes tension in you.

When I tell you, you can understand it only intellectually. When it becomes your own experience, when you have that clarity, you will go beyond worries. Then depression cannot touch you. You will go beyond misery.

A small story:

When I was staying in Calcutta, taking classes on the Isha Vasya Upanishad, a man came to see me.
He said, “Swamiji, I have a problem. I don’t sleep well at night because I live in an area where there are plenty of street dogs. Every night they start barking, and keep barking till sunrise. I am already a very light sleeper, and I simply can’t get any rest because of this noise.”
I told him, “Go home and try this tonight. When you hear the barking, just drop the anger, the negative feelings that rise up in you. Just listen to the barking sound without resisting. Tell yourself that the dogs are barking, that’s all. Don’t allow yourself to react. The problem is not the barking, but your resistance to it.”
The man went back tried what I said. After a few days he came back to me and reported, “Swamiji, I tried dropping my resistance as you said. Instead of thinking, ‘How dare those stupid dogs spoil my sleep!’ I tried changing my thoughts gradually:
‘The dogs are barking. It is spoiling my sleep.…’
‘The dogs are barking…’
‘Some animals are creating some sounds…’
By the time I came to that sentence, I think I fell asleep. Anyway, I’ve been having excellent sleep all these days. Thank you Swamiji!”

This can happen with you also. Any situation can be dealt with, if you know how to drop your negativity, if you know how to drop your negative reaction to it. This is the key to open the Manipuraka chakra.

But the mind is so eager to harbour, to settle down in familiar patterns of inner chatter. This is the basis of the working of worry. The mind always looks to typecast things. It needs comparison all the time between past, present and future and this comparison, this reference, this judgment, gives birth to worry.

Worries are nothing but familiar dwelling patterns for our mind. These familiar patterns are called engrams in the field of human psychology. Engrams are the engraved memories of the past, which serve as an undesirable resource inside us for all our present and future actions. Because of these stored engrams, we react illogically in the present.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.