This started as a response to a kid who shot his mouth off and blew his dance date — and yes, we have been talking high philosophy, but should never lose focus of the essentials. Simple question — why did he shoot his mouth off? Answer — his mind wasn’t in control. He was too excited. Maybe, he wanted to rush things to the next level. What’s the analysis? In a moment of madness he couldn’t “see himself”, couldn’t “see the other”, or “creatively seize the moment”.
That’s the limited goal I set before you guys now. Do this much, and I will have earned one year’s worth of writing this column. Learn to first “see yourself” in a moment of madness, which is in fact most of the time anyway. We are never in control with what’s happening inside our heads, are we?
This leads to a contradiction — if you have gone crazy, how can you be in control? Which leads us to ask — who are “you” anyway? And leads us to define that there is a part of you which is always watching, always detached, always the observer within, and when you go crazy, that part watches you go crazy. So if you can shift the “you” to mean that cool, calm person who watches the rest of you go nuts, you are closer to “seeing yourself” in a mad moment.
Not going too fast, am I? I am just rephrasing what we have been talking about for the last few weeks. Moving ahead I want to ask, “how do you learn to shift the ‘you’ point inside your head?” That’s the big question really. The beauty of the human mind is that it can screw you all your life and suddenly, one fine day, when you learn the secret of rising above it — become the perfect genie, and soar with you, almost as if on a magic carpet, and become perfectly obedient to your every whim and wish. The wise and old in all religions and cultures knew the art of turning the mind around. Rather, they knew the art of leaving the mind alone and turning themselves around. They could easily tell the mind — “feel no anger” — and they would switch off their tempers, “feel no cold” and withstand extreme cold. They did this within reasonable limits of course, because they knew that the body is mostly water and subject to wear and tear like any other machine.
We don’t need so much power. We just need to reach a stage when we can say “let me see myself”. How do you do this? For starters, leave the mind alone. Turn yourself around first. Start identifying with the observer inside. During the day, spend 10 minutes consciously watching yourself. Observe every thought, every mood, every spoken word, every feeling and attitude. It’s very tough in the beginning. You can’t hold this for even 10 seconds before the mind comes in and blows you away. It’s as if the mind knows that you are trying to rise above it and won’t let you.
Your strength lies in perseverance. Keep observing yourself, and each time the mind shoos you away, get back to the watcher’s post and restart. After a while it gets easy. You can now learn the art of “switching” from the mind to the observer. That’s when you start gaining real power.
Does this sound too much? That’s the problem with our education system. They teach you to dissect a frog, but leave you clueless about your own mind. Let’s correct that. Start practising from today and let me know how it’s going. See you next week.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/sites/default/files/The Asian Age/aos5_0.JPG
