Art of using your mind

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insane. These five modifications of the mind, this totality of the mind, can

lead you into deep anguish, into misery. If you use the mind rightly, its

functioning can lead you into non-misery. That word non-misery is very

significant. Patanjali doesn’t say that it will lead you into bliss, because

bliss is your intrinsic nature. You are born with it, you have it already.

That’s why Patanjali simply says either misery or non-misery. Buddha says the

same. That’s all that methods can do. Once you are in the state of non-misery,

bliss starts flowing from your inner being. You open the windows and the rays

of the sun enter. By opening the windows you are not creating the sun. The sun

was already there. Your window can become a passage, but it cannot create the

rays; the rays are there. Right knowledge If this center of prama, of right

knowledge, starts functioning in you, you will become a sage. You can

assert, but you cannot prove. How can you prove? If you are in love, how can you

prove that you are in love? You can simply assert. You have pain in your leg;

how can you prove that you have pain? You simply assert that, “I have pain.”

You know somewhere inside. That knowing is enough. Meditation leads to this

modification. When there is no need to prove, mind is not needed because mind

is a logical instrument. You need it every moment. You have to think, find out

what is wrong and what is right. Every moment there are choices and

alternatives. When right knowledge functions you can drop the mind because now

choosing has no meaning. You move choicelessly. Whatsoever is right is revealed

to you. A sage is one who never chooses. He never chooses good against bad. He

simply moves towards the direction of good, just like sunflowers. When the sun

is in the east, the flower moves to the east. It never chooses. When the sun

moves to the west, the flower moves to

the west. It simply moves with the sun. Wherever is good he moves simply. He has

nothing to choose, he simply moves. If you say, “This is bad,” he will say,

“Okay, it may be bad but this is how I move, this is how my being flows.” Once

a person has come to be centered in himself, when a person has achieved

meditation, once a person has become silent and the mind has been dropped then

he is beyond our morality, beyond tradition. He is beyond our limitations, and

we should not judge. Wrong knowledge If your center of wrong knowledge is

functioning, whatsoever you do, whatsoever you choose, whatsoever you decide

will be wrong. There are people who feel very unfortunate because whatsoever

they do goes wrong. They try not to do wrong but that’s not going to help; the

center has to be changed. Their minds function in a wrong way. With all their

good wishes, they are helpless. If the wrong center is

functioning then nothing can be done. This modification of the mind Patanjali

calls viparyaya, perversion. You interpret everything in such a way it becomes

a perversion. All over the world people have done that. In India we say, “If

you bathe in the Ganges your sins will dissolve.” It was a beautiful concept in

itself. It shows that sin is not something very deep; it is just like dust on

you. So don’t get too much obsessed by it, don’t feel guilty; it is just dust,

and you remain pure inside. Just bathing in the Ganges can help. Don’t become

as obsessed with sin as Christianity has become. But how have we interpreted

it? We say, “Then it is okay. Go on committing sin.” And after a while, when

you feel now you have committed many, go give a chance to the Ganges to purify;

then come back and commit again.” This is the center of perversion. Imagination

Mind has the faculty to imagine. Paintings, art,

dance, music, everything that is beautiful has come through the imagination. But

everything that is ugly has also come through the imagination. Hitler imagined a

world of supermen. So he destroyed. Just utopian imagination - that just by

destroying the weak, the ugly, the physically crippled you will have a

beautiful world. But the very destruction is the most ugly thing possible in

the world - the very destruction. He had a utopian imagination. And for his

imaginative world, he tried to destroy this world completely. His imagination

has gone mad. Imagination can give you poetry and painting and art, and

imagination can give you madness also. It depends how you use it. All the great

scientific discoveries have been through imagination - people who could imagine

the impossible. If you imagine you are beautiful, a certain beauty will start

happening to your body. Whenever a man says to a woman, “You are beautiful,”

the woman changes immediately. Every

woman, every man who is loved becomes more beautiful. A person who is not loved

becomes ugly. If imagination is not there you shrink. Whole generations, whole

ages, whole countries have been changed through imagination. Look at the Hindus

and the Sikhs of Punjab - they belong to the same race. Five hundred years

before all were Hindus. And then a different type of race, a military race, was

born. Nanak said: “You are a different type of race. You are unconquerable.”

Once that imagination started to work in the Punjab, within five hundred years

a new race, totally different from Punjabi Hindus, has come into being. In

India, no one is braver than they; on the whole earth Sikhs have no comparison.

They can fight fearlessly. What has happened? Their imagination has created a

milieu around them. They feel that just by being Sikhs they are different.

Imagination can make a brave man out of you, it can make you a coward. When

people meditate many things

happen through their imagination. They start seeing lights, colors, visions,

talking to god himself or moving with Jesus, dancing with Krishna. A meditator

has to remember that these are functions of the imagination. Don’t think that

they are real. Only the witnessing consciousness is real; nothing else is real.

Whatsoever happens, enjoy it. It is beautiful to dance with Krishna; nothing is

wrong in it. Dance! Enjoy it! But remember continuously that this is

imagination, a beautiful dream. Don’t be lost in it. If you are lost then

imagination has become dangerous. Many religious people move in imagination and

waste their lives. Sleep Sleep means your outward-moving consciousness has gone

deep into itself. Conscious activity has stopped. Mind is not functioning. If

you are dreaming then it is not sleep. You are just in the middle; you have

left the waking and you have not entered sleep. Sleep means a

totally contentless state - no activity, no movement in the mind. Mind has

completely been absorbed, relaxed. This sleep is beautiful; it is life-giving.

And if you know how to use it, this sleep can become samadhi. Because samadhi

and sleep are not very different. Only one difference is there -in samadhi you

will be aware. In sleep you are in the same blissful state but you are not

aware. Patanjali says natural sleep is good for the body’s health, and if you

can become alert in sleep it can become a spiritual phenomenon. Something

inside goes on being aware. The body falls into sleep, the mind falls into

sleep, but the witnessing remains. Then sleep becomes the ultimate ecstasy.

Memory If memory is misused it creates confusion. You may remember something

but you cannot be certain whether it happened that way or not. Your memory is

not reliable. You may add many things, you may delete many things, you may do

many things to it. You are imagining; you are creating your past, you are not

true to it. You drop all that was ugly, all that was sad, all that was painful;

all that was beautiful you continue. All that was a support to your ego you

remember, and all that was not a support you forget. Everybody has a great

storehouse of dropped memories. To be truly honest with one’s own memories one

will have to pass through arduous effort. You have to be nakedly true, you have

to know what you really think about your father, about your mother, about your

brother, about your sister. Whatsoever you have in the past, don’t change it,

don’t polish it; let it be as it is. Then you will not be a hypocrite. You will

be real, true, sincere - you will become authentic. When you become authentic

you become like a rock; nothing can create confusion. And then clarity of mind

is achieved. That clarity can lead you towards meditation; that clarity can

become the basic ground - to grow

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