The Mind Stuff
This article on the nature of the mind is taken from a discourse given by Sathya Sai Baba on November 24, 1974 in Prasanthi Nilayam.
It is a vain task to divide the things of the world into good and bad and it is also sacrilegious! For, when all are the products of His will, how can anything be extolled or condemned? Besides, what is good for one maybe bad for another; what is good at sometime may be bad at another time; what is good in small quantities may be bad in large quantities. The crow relishes the bitter neem fruit; the cuckoo eats the tender leaves of the mango tree. People find joy, and satisfaction in a variety of things and experiences of the most contradictory character. Therefore, one can only infer that it is the mind of each that directs one to seek this things as good and avoid that other thing as bad.
Philosophy tells us that the mind decides not merely the goodness or badness of a thing or experience, it creates all things and all experiences. Without the mind, there can be no object or feeling or emotion. No mind, no matter! The mind revels in name and form; it imposes name and form and thus, helps in creating things and experiences. It cannot contact or operate upon anything without name and form. That is why the mind is helpless when meditation has to be done on the nameless and the formless. It clings to name-form, ever. Mental pictures have concretized themselves as objects and as ideas; so, the sruthis (scriptures) declare, Yad bhavam, thad bhavathi—as the mind operates, so, the matter is decided.
But, God is beyond name and form; He is all names and all forms and yet, incomprehensible and mysterious. How then can God be apprehended by means of meditation on name-form? This is a legitimate question. It can be answered by means of a simile. Water drowns man; water also helps him swim. It draws in and it buoys up both. Only, man has to learn the process by which he can keep afloat. In the same way, name and form which appear to be limitations and handicaps can serve as instruments and helps to transcend name-form and realize God.
The realization of God instills ananda (bliss) which has no form but only a man-made name. It springs and wells up in the heart, and pervades the entire body and expresses itself in the face. The face is the index of inner bliss. Sadness, anxiety, fear, hope, determination, doubt—all are reflected on the face and can be easily spotted.
The mind can remain unaffected by the storms of emotion only by bending to the yoke of intellect or buddhi. It should escape from the grips of the senses and yield to the reins of the reasoning faculty and obey unquestioningly its dictates. The sense are inert so long as the self keeps away from inducting the mind to accept the information submitted by them. This mike before me helps those who are sitting all over this vast auditorium to listen clearly to my words. But, the mike and the loudspeakers are inert metallic things. A few minutes ago, the college student made a speech which was interrupted for a few minutes, since the electric current failed. Without that current activating them, they cannot work at all.
The eye that sees is inert; all objects ‘seen’ are inert; only the seer is ‘intelligent’. And the current of intelligence is supplied by the atma (individual soul), which is your reality. When the current does not activate, they eye might look on but it does not see; the ear might hear, but, the hearing does not react or recognize. For, the mind is elsewhere. It has to function with the help of the divine consciousness within.
The mind is like a fragrant flower; it emits fragrance whether it is held in the right hand or in the left, whether the person who holds it is good or bad. It walks blindly along irrespective of the lay of the land. It is blind; and so, someone has to take it in tow. When you invite ten blind people for dinner, you have to lay twenty plates. For, each blind person brings with him and has to so bring with him, a guide who can lead him to your home. So, the mind, too must have a guide who knows the way, the obstacles, the shoals and ferries.
The mind has to be watched vigilantly, and warned against its own tricks. It is a clever actor, embroiling you in many a close adventure. The mind is like the revered old gentleman who appeared alternatively in the houses of the bridegroom’s party and the bride’s party during a marriage festival and issued orders to all and sundry which were honored by both, since each party thought he was the person with authority coming from the other party! His very pomposity aroused the suspicions of both before long, and when they jointly sought him and asked him who he was, he took to his heels and made himself scarce, The mind too is just like the gentleman. Catch it and inquire wherefore it secured credentials to order you about; it will disappear in no time!
The only method which you can adopt to escape from the coils of the mind is the cultivation of pure intelligence. This is the sum and substance of all spiritual discipline. And, the intelligence gets cleansed of all partiality and prejudice, hatred and greed only by the adoration of God through love poured out to all the beings created by God and standing witness to His glory and beauty. Share love with all; earn the treasure of love, store it in your heart and invite all to share in it. When you try to distribute the property earned by your grandfather or father, legal, moral, economic and practical obstacles will stand up before you. But, when you are distributing your ‘self-earned’ property, nothing legal or otherwise can stand in the way.
Remember the mind is a very talkative imp, it can never keep quiet even for a second. You have been listening to me since more than an hour and perhaps you are under the impression that your mind has been quiet all that time. No. The mind has been holding a conversation with itself, when it is supposed to be silent! Give it perpetual tasks. Ask it, (as some rishi did to a demon who acted as his servant but threatened to devour him the moment he did not have any task allotted to him) ask it to climb a pillar and slide down it, whenever it has no other work. The pillar is soham (I am that)—a mantra that the breath is repeating from birth to death. ‘So’ when you inhale and ‘ham’ when you exhale. Let it repeat soham all the time.
The Sathya Sai Organization has been established to provide sacred tasks for every moment of wakeful life, to make people conscious of the vagaries and vanities of the mind and teach them the processes of disintegrating the mind and establishing the reign of the pure intellect, by which alone the One behind all this multiplicity can be realized as the only reality.
Source: “The Mind Stuff,” Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. IX
