You Think the Mind Tells You the Truth

Swamiji: I repeat about the phenomenon of the human mind’s functioning. Whatever situation the body may be in, but when a person wakes up, the mind has to take into account whether or not the body is alright; after that, the mind starts thinking. The mind can think in a variety of ways, taking into consideration any point at issue, whether it is for or against it. Those people who have listened to the mind and its weaving and who have become accustomed to negativity, pain, and suffering—or to always think against the positive happening—they start suffering. And the mind feels joy in this! [Laughter.] This is the mind’s functioning. The mind feels joy over somebody’s pain and suffering and his sorry, sad affairs—including those of his own body. So the mind enjoys even when one’s own body is in pain and suffering—which the mind itself has created. So the mind actually enjoys its own creation, its style of creation. It looks as though things were somewhere else, but they’re all inside.

The mind will never know that Guru has reached the stage that he will remain just the same after receiving any information that you give him. … I am always just the same. If you know that I am just the same, then you can tell me anything freely. … I am talking about the phenomenon of the functioning of the mind that sometimes you remember and sometimes you don’t. When you don’t remember, do you die because the mind doesn’t remember? Why is it that you condemn yourself, thinking that "I am the one who forgot." What is it to You? You remain just the same, whether or not the mind has forgotten. In the same way, each person wants to talk about someone else’s affairs which are not good. You are interested in talking to others about anybody’s bad affairs. But you will not talk about them to me, because you think that Swamiji actually doesn’t relish these things. You know in this way. And for me, there is no such thing as relishing or not relishing. But since I look just the same as all of you, so you can never think that I am someone who is of the type that you do not know.

To describe the mind’s functioning—I was sitting over there [in the centre of the stage] and looking at you. Turiya started saying something [giving a speech]. But a thought came that "I’ll have songs sung, and for that the stage should be freed earlier rather than at that time." So I said to bring my chair over here [at the side of the stage, leaving room for singers] and thus I put my chair here. But at that time I began to think that it is just possible that Turiya’s mind will say that because of her speech I withdrew [he was now sitting at a distance from the speaker’s seat, where she was sitting]. She was alright, but if she thought that when she began to speak then I must have felt that something was not alright and so I had moved, then she will make herself miserable. And I began to think this, not she—because I will not know her mind, and she will never tell me what happened. …

This is your identification, which is so strongly fixed in your mind’s functioning that whatever your mind thinks, that is true for you. One day you think, "I’m thinking like that, and I’m really very angry." The next moment you revise this and say, "I’m alright." But I do not know that you’re going to revise it, otherwise I would have never have said, "It’s OK, send it." If you had revised it, then I would have said, "Treat it that you can revise it, and wait." Had you studied the human mind, you would have been free. Daily, we make speeches. It is a practice—a practice for the speaker, a practice for the listener, and a practice for me to watch how the mind is functioning and how everyone is caught in it. Whatever one thinks, one thinks that it is alright. …

I can figure out that the relative field is like that, the spiritual field is like that, and that people mix them up so thoroughly that when they speak of the spiritual, they neglect the body and the relative field; and when they’re into the relative field, then they never remember that they have the potential to unfold that inner Being, inner Freedom, or inner Voice that always speaks the Truth. You never get to That, because it is not purified. "It is not purified" means that it is the mind. As long as this mind remains, you will never be free. Treat it that you will be in trouble. And you are seeking freedom from trouble—at least mentally. Physically, some doctor or nurse will take care of you, and all that will happen. But mentally, you are upset. Why? Because you think that the mind is something that tells you the Truth. …

I just called Turiya to speak. There was no scheme in my mind to call Turiya and then other people. Absolutely not. If it is not in my mind like that, then at that time where am I? The same thing is with you. Whenever there is nothing in your mind, you must know where you are. You are at your own place. That’s called Aakaash [Space]. You are in Aakaash. When you are not in the mind, then you are in Aakaash. This is what the process is. All of you are going to be freed—or you are knowing that sometimes you are in Aakaash. When you are in Aakaash, then dukh-sukh [pain-joy] do not affect you. But when you are in the mind, or on earth, then dukh-sukh changes will happen. You are wanting to be in that which is Unchanging. But you began to call a mountain as unchanging and a river as changing. That’s not the right meaning of the word "Unchanging." Unchanging is where change and unchanging are not. …

That is where your attention is being led to You. But as a human being, you must have felt that it is a great challenge for you. You just cannot be You, rather you are everything. You listen to this and say, "I am You, I really feel it. Swamiji, I am You and you are Me. I really understand you." What is You? That is where you will succeed in knowing That whose name is not. If you say "the world," it is not. If you say "God," it is also not. But with That you know that God is and you know that the world is—but That is neither the world nor God. And That is the world also and God also. So this remains a confusion, and I generally say that if you can understand, well and good. If not, let me say, and then you can say something. …

When the mind is treated to be perfect, true, and existing, then a human being has to listen to what the mind says. It is such a complicated human understanding, mental awareness, or human head, that it will continue reaction and action. Suppose you have realized who You are. That’s alright. When you have realized who You are and yet the mind functions totally negatively, then you will think, "Well, I have realized, but my mind is still functioning negatively." Then, with the same process, tomorrow you will say, "I have realized, and my legs still walk, my ears still hear, and my eyes still see. I meditate and I know that I am That, but I still keep thinking whether this is right or that is right, whether I should apply this word or that phrase. What is this?" This is the mental functioning, which is to be studied. If you do not study it, then you will not know who actually That is who has studied.

You can say, "Raam Raam, Amaram Madhuram, Aum Aum, Namo Namo" or anything like that, or say it in English also. You are using words, but what is that when the words are over, or are absorbed in the Space, or when the words did not come? That is not known to you. And that is what You are. So a human being is always wrapped up or caught in knowing that this is the word and that is the meaning, whereas there is no word and there is no meaning. If you understand this, then there is no relation between the word and the meaning. But a human being is only this, that "I am bound by this and that and that." So the same mind creates that "I am bound." It’s creating that—and it’s desiring that "I should be free"! That is where the difficulty is: who says that I should be free and who says that I am bound? That is not figured out, because it is a work. …

Mukta: Swamiji, by just observing the mind, such as when you had described what happened with Turiya and said, "Don’t conclude negatively," then that brings the awareness of You?

Swamiji: You are That who will never conclude negatively, because for You there is no negative and for You there is no positive. But when I say, "Don’t conclude negatively," then you only understand to conclude positively. Then you think That must be positive. But both are not in You—neither positive nor negative. In this way, hearing this something happens to you that you think, "Oh, Swamiji is talking about Me, the Freedom." … [A human being thinks that Freedom is when he is free of something.] But I say that Freedom is You. Again and again, we say all these words just to let you grasp your Self as You. The potential is there, because I know that you as a whole are not only a person, you as a whole are the whole universe. Then immediately you say, "How can I be the Whole, because I am this [body]?" So this I and me is not broken, and that is a human being. We say this so that you should not become miserable. Just that. Remain liberated. I know that you are not going to succeed in it by thinking positive, right? You are thinking positive—but you are aware that there is negative! …

The moment that a human being hears that there is no positive and no negative, then what? Because for a human being, there is either positive or negative. We say that there is no positive or negative just to let you be surprised and examine, "What is That?" If you can do this, it’s well and good. Otherwise, you will say, "That is all wrong. The Self is positive. God is positive. Life is positive. And the world is negative. Death is negative and birth is positive." Such people will never succeed in knowing You. … In the dream, the world is there and the Self is there—or the individual, the soul, or God as a whole is there. But when the dream is over, then what remains? You. There is no name for That. We began to call it the Knower, or Experience. Why? Because you cannot make the Knower, or Experience, positive or negative. Those people who are enlightened have the power to understand what is being said.