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๐บ ASHTAVAKRA GITA๐บ
๐ฟChapter - 12๐ฟ
~ The Nature Of The Mind ~
๐ฑ Day - 62 ๐ฑ
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Suppose a delicate piece of cloth, silk, is caught up in a thorny bush. It needs a skill to remove it. It is the same with the mind. It is very easy for the mind to either like or dislike something, or swing between these two extremes. The mind exists by doing this. It cannot exist without these opposites; without the duality, without the swing. Either the mind will like or dislike something. The mind hates something, and then, again it loves something else. The mind goes towards whatever one understands is bad or not right (what we should not do). It does it more often. The mind is attached to some ideals and resolutions. 'I must do this, I want to be like that', and then one finds it very difficult to follow those ideals. You have all experienced this over and over again. Every time you have failed. When you have failed, you have blamed the failure on your practices, on your efforts, on other things you do to improve yourself. You keep blaming yourself. You either blame yourself or you blame your sadhana, the instruments or tools you use to improve yourself. You either say, it hasn't worked for you or you say you are not fit for it at all. It is easy to come to these two conclusions. Then the mind still remains; the mind still exists. What is to be done?
Have you heard the story about the monkey? There was a farmer who went to a saint and said, "Give me something so that my life becomes wonderful. Give me a mantra, a japa and then I will do something great." The saint agreed and gave him a mantra to chant. The farmer was very happy. He was about to leave when saint said, "Just a minute, I forgot to tell you something. Whenever you want to chant the mantra or when you sit for meditation, take care not to think of a monkey. If you do, the mantra will become useless and impotent. It won't be of any use to you." The farmer said, 'Oh, this is so easy! I have never thought about monkeys in my life. There is no reason why I should think about them now. And I have just a wheat and paddy field. Monkeys don't come there at all.' So he went home and sat to meditate. The first thing that come to his mind was a monkey! He thought, 'Oh, perhaps it is daytime now. Maybe they are here somewhere and those vibrations are striking my mind. It is not me. Maybe the monkeys want me to remember them. But at night they'll be asleep. Let me meditate then.' So he got up at 10 o'clock that night, and started to meditate. The first thing that came to his mind was the monkey. He thought of monkeys not only during meditation, but at all other times too! While sitting, standing, eating, drinking, he even had nightmares of monkeys in his dreams! Within three days he was so bothered by the monkeys, he ran back to the saint on the fourth day and asked him to take his mantra and money back! 'I don't want it! Relieve me of this monkey business! I have gone crazy! I can't do anything!'
The mind is like that. Ashtavakra knew this nature of the mind very well. There is one golden point by which the mind can be lifted up, and that is wonder. Wonder is where there is no concept,no mind. One slips very easily from wonder to concepts. It is such a balancing line! Wonder about the concepts of likes or dislikes. How it should or should not be. What I want and what I don't want. In wonder, there is no wanting or not wanting. Wonder is a wonder! In wonder there are no likes or dislikes. It is what 'is', is wonder. Ashtavakra removed all these concepts from Janaka's mind. What is it that could have bothered Janaka? He says, 'It is really a wonder to see a man of wisdom - one who has known oneself as Infinity, as unbounded, not of this body - to be still getting into the gross.' This is the wonder. A conscious and aware person is pained more by his own faults. A conscious man's main problem is his own mind, not the others. Someone who is conscious of himself, of his nature is troubled by his own mind, if he has even a bit of awareness. What troubles a conscious person is his own mind. First, let us enquire what is it that troubles it? We will see what this is.
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