The Content of Your Mind

"The content of your mind is not your choice; it has happened. Whatever you are exposed to has been absorbed by the mind. It just soaked up everything that it came in touch with."

The Content of Your Mind

Questioner: I'm aware of all of the ways that I mess with myself, my nonsense. And I create a lot of pain for myself, so I'm going towards awareness but I’m still experiencing the pain of the mind. How might someone address that?

Sadhguru: The content of your mind is not your choice; it is decided by where you are. Everything that is around you gets into it. You have no choice about what you have gathered. And what you have gathered in your mind goes far beyond your present levels of perception. But it gathers everything that the five senses come in touch with. In wakefulness and in sleep, it gathers. It is just that most of it is not in the form of conscious memory, so you do not know. But it is all there. So the content of your mind is not your choice; it has happened. Whatever you are exposed to has been absorbed by the mind. It just soaked up everything that it came in touch with.

Now what is hurting you is this: you want to think about God, but your mind thinks about something else. This is your pain, isn't it? You must have tried to discipline your mind in some way or the other, but has it worked? That’s the question. Has it worked? Next 10 minutes, I will tell you what are the things you should not think about, will it work? No. So there is no point trying to fix the garbage bin. When I refer to the mind as 'garbage bin', I'm not saying it is not useful. Isn’t the garbage bin very useful in your house? You can live without a television, you can even live without a telephone, but you can't live without a garbage bin. It is most essential for your house. But just because it is so useful, would you decide to sleep in it tonight? If you did that, life would be terrible, wouldn’t it? That's all that has happened to you. This mind is a fantastic instrument, anything and everything that it comes in touch with, it is storing it up for you, for your use. But now you are sleeping in it, you are living in it, so it is big trouble – big time, not small time. If you could keep the garbage bin in such a way that, when you want it you can open it, and when you don't want to use it, you can shut it and keep it there, that would be great. The problem right now is that it is always open. Not only it is open, but you are sitting in it. You have to crawl out of it now.

Don't try to fix the garbage bin. Do you want to empty it? “No, all the ‘dirty’ things in my mind, let them go!” If they go away, you will start exploring all the same ‘dirty’ things once again because they are new. Please keep them in your mind, they are very important. The dirtiest and the filthiest of things on this planet are very important; they must be in your mind. If your discretion is active, you won't walk into them. If you don't live in that, there is no problem. But if you are helplessly living there, that is the problem.

Now Shambhavi Mahamudra is a tool for you to walk out of your mind. You simply sit here, mind will be happening there, far away, and you just watch it. Once this distance is well established, the content of your mind is no more a problem for you. Because you are in it, it is a problem; not because of what it contains. People think that if they are ignorant of various things that are happening on this planet, they will be free. They say ignorance is bliss? Yes, but only till life gets you, okay? It is like you go to a tall building and jump off. Do you know what bliss it is? Have you ever tried skydiving? You jump off, free fall, it is absolutely beautiful. It is actually wonderful if you don't pull the parachute. Only thing is, it is wonderful until you hit the ground.

Once it happened, Shankaran Pillai fell off the third floor and injured himself pretty badly. He went around limping with a crutch. People asked him, “What happened? Are you hurt? Oh the fall hurt you?” He said, “No, it is not the fall, it was the stopping!” The fall never hurts. It is the stopping that hurts. So ignorance is not bliss. For a short while it could be. Not for life. Knowing everything about life but remaining untouched by it, is purity. You know all the nonsense of life but you are untouched by it, this is beautiful.

Some people develop an allergy for filth and they want to run away somewhere, they want to go off into the mountains. They have an allergy to filth, so they want to run away. But it doesn't matter where you run; you still carry your mind with you. You can't leave your mind and go to the Himalayas. If you suddenly go to the Himalayas, the magnitude of the Himalayas is such that you will feel absolutely wonderful for two days. If you live there for a couple of months, all your problems will come right there in the Himalayas. Do you see how your vacations go? Holidays are always brief, fortunately. You make them last a little longer and see: all your problems will follow you there also. Fortunately they give you very brief vacations because most people couldn't enjoy a long holiday.

A plant grows thick; it grows well, wherever the slush is thick. So these are the options that you have: either you become filth, or you develop allergy for filth, or you use this filth and convert this filth into a fragrant blossom. We are looking at the third option here. Are you interested?