Never a better time than now !

It’s a pity we waste our precious NOW by just aimlessly thinking of the unknown future. The mind has become our master rather than keeping under our control. We lift our arms and legs when we want to, but our mind is beyond our control; it keeps running non-stop even when we need it to stop… like a film roll reeling continuously flashing through the past memories and making future projections despite our will. It gets us so tired ! The mind has taken over us completely, and we have become its slaves. It keeps running aimlessly into the past and future without our even being aware of it ! We must put it back in it’s rightful place to be able to discover our true powers, our true self ! This aimless running of the mind has killed our true capacities and powers, we are much much more than what we have diminished ourselves to. We must remind ourselves that our mind is a utility, a mere device provided for our convenience of recording, calculating, memorizing. We should be able to summon it when WE need it, and not allow it to take us for a ride 24 hrs of the day, even in our sleep! The mind is not at rest even for a second; aimlessly wandering.. making us mentally and physically sick; dominating us ! No one but WE can help ourselves out of it; and once you taste the inner peace, the silence that comes with the mind being still, you will discover your true powers ! Nobody or nothing will be able to agitate you, to affect you in any way.. you will not be dependent on anyone or anything for your happiness. You will be completely at peace with yourself; one with nature.

You can start by simply watching the thoughts that cross your mind… just sit back and watch the thoughts come and go. You will be surprised that most of the thoughts that keep your mind occupied are useless and have no relation to reality; to the present. You will either be making castles in the air of a future that hasn’t even come, a future that is unpredictable which we cannot steer even if we wanted to. OR, it will be dwelling in the past which has already passed now, and we couldn’t re-live it even if we wanted to.

Another starter would be to watch your breathing. Become aware of each breath you take; watch it all the way in, and all the way out(closing your eyes would help still your mind all the more). We normally breathe unconsciously; the very root of our existence, and we are not even aware of it.

Whatever you do, try to be conscious of your actions. Many a tasks we do absent mindedly which proves that the mind has wandered off elsewhere, and is not present with us in what we are doing.

THE STUDENT OF TAO AIMS AT LOSING DAY BY DAY

Just the opposite is the student of  Tao, the student of truth, not of knowledge, the student of being, not of becoming. He is just the opposite. He goes on losing day by day, he unburdens himself, he unlearns. His only learning is how to unlearn. The only thing he is interested in is how to be totally unburdened.

A German philosopher came to see Maharshi Raman. Of course he had travelled long, and he must have thought much about what he was going to ask. When he reached Raman he said, I have come to sit near you, to learn much. Raman looked at him with deep compassion and said, Then you have come to the wrong person because here I teach only unlearning. If you have come to learn you have come to the wrong place, go somewhere else; but if you are ready to unlearn, mature enough to unlearn, then you can stay here.

He was right. Near a sage you go to unlearn. When you are fed up with your learning, when you have learned much and gained nothing, when you know much and you are lost in your knowledge, when you know much but you have completely forgotten who you are, when you know much about unnecessary things, non essential things, and the essential knowledge about your own being is lost, then you come to a sage to unlearn.

And that is the greatest surrender. It is easy to surrender your wealth, because it is outside you. Robbers can take it, it can be stolen, it is nothing that is part of you, it is outside! You can drop it easily. But your knowledge becomes an inner phenomenon, it gets inside you, it runs in your blood, it becomes part of your bones, it becomes your very marrow; it is difficult to surrender it.

It is easy to learn a thing, it is very very difficult to unlearn it. How to unlearn when you know a certain thing? It becomes very very difficult to not know it. How to drop it? It is so deep in you. Unless you move beyond the mind, for you are identified with the mind, you cannot drop it because then you think ‘It is me’. Then you think your knowledge is your being.

Move! All meditations are techniques to move from the mind, to gain a little distance from the mind, to become a little aloof and unidentified with it, to transcend the mind, to become a watcher on the hills so you can see what is happening in the mind. When you are separate from the mind, only then is there a possibility to drop something, to drop knowledge, to unlearn.

THE STUDENT OF TAO AIMS AT LOSING DAY BY DAY.

That is his gain. He gains by losing day by day. That is his learning, he learns by unlearning day by day. A moment comes when he is again a child, not knowing anything. A moment comes when he enters into the paradise again.

He tasted the bitter fruit of knowledge, but he found out it was stupid. Knowledge is deep stupidity.

He found it out, now he comes into paradise again. Now no serpent can seduce him. He comes mature — childlike but mature; a child, innocent — but alert, aware, conscious.

Now he attains to a greater purity, because a purity which has no awareness is bound to be lost. Somebody is going to seduce, somebody is going to corrupt, and if there is nobody, you yourself will corrupt yourself, because you are not alert.

Adam had to be thrown out of the garden of paradise. He was simply innocent. He was Buddha like in one part: he was innocent, he was like Jesus in one part: he was innocent, but the other part was lacking, he was not aware.

Adam is the be inning, Jesus is the end. Adam is half, Jesus is complete — the other half has become aware. Now Jesus is incorruptible. He is not only pure he is also incorruptible, his innocence is now absolute.

THE STUDENT OF TAO AIMS AT LOSING DAY BY DAY. BY CONTINUAL LOSING ONE REACHES DOING NOTHING.

This is very subtle. Pay as much attention as you can pay to it. Be as meditative about it as possible.

You may not know that the word meditation comes from the same root as medicine, medical, and the original meaning of the word was — a technique to become whole, a technique to become healthy. Medicine is medicinal, just like that, meditation is also medicinal. It makes you whole, integrated, healthy.

Pay attention, listen to it as meditatively as possible. When you listen meditatively you understand, when you listen concentratedly you learn. If you listen with concentration, you will gain knowledge, if you listen meditatively, you will lose knowledge. And the difference is very subtle.

When you listen attentively, attention means a tension, it means you are tense, too eager to learn, to absorb, to know. You are interested in knowledge, concentration is the way towards knowledge; mind focussed on one thing of course, learns more.

Meditation is unfocussed mind, you simply listen silently, not with a tension in the mind, not with an urge to know and learn, no, with total relaxedness, in a let go, in an opening of your being.

You listen, not to know, you simply listen to understand. These are different ways of listening.

If you are trying to know, then you are trying to memorize what I am saying, deep down you are repeating it, you are taking notes inside the mind, you are writing it in the world of your memories, you are interested in letting it become deeply rooted in you so you don’t forget. Then it will become knowledge.

And the same seed could have become unlearning, understanding. Then you simply listen, you are not interested in accumulating it, you are not interested in writing it in your memory, in your mind. You simply listen open, as you listen to music, as you listen to birds singing in the trees, as you listen to wind passing through ancient pines, as you listen to the sound of water in a waterfall — there is nothing to remember, nothing to memorize, you don’t listen with a parrot mind, you simply listen without any mind — the listening is beautiful, it is ecstatic, there is no goal in it, in itself it is ecstatic, it is blissful.

Listen meditatively, not with concentration. All schools, colleges, universities, teach concentration, because the goal is to memorize. Here the goal is not to memorize, the goat is not to learn at all, the goal is to unlearn.

Source:  Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 3
Chapter 3 – Conquering the World by Inaction