Words From The Master - 04 March 2008

Towards Meditative Living

Thorns on your path
(continuation from earlier post)

The biggest spokesperson of the ego is the mind.

Just like the body, the mind too should be an instrument in your hands.

The mind is a wonderful instrument, tremendously powerful. It is a marvel of creativity. It is a masterpiece of design. And the mind is a social necessity - without the mind, we would not survive in this world.

But we forget that the mind is only an instrument – we ourselves become an instrument of the mind! We are totally controlled by our mind.

The great trick that the mind plays on us to separate us from reality is the use of language.

Words are what separate us from reality. The moment we perceive something, we try to verbalize it. When you see a flower, you tell yourself, This is a flower. We absorb all of
life though words, through abstract concepts. But words are not the experience!

The word flower is not the flower, the word love is not love, the word enlightenment is not enlightenment. Words form a barrier between you and reality.

Meditation has no need for words. Meditation is the direct experience of reality.

But the mind carries on this constant chatter of words. The mind doesn’t let you relax for a single moment. The mind is constantly creating ideas, concepts, opinions for you. It uses words to distort reality.

(to be continued.)
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This excerpt has been taken from the book: "Meditation is for You" -- an introduction to the science and art of meditation