Suryanarayana Raju: To stop running after thoughts and to sit in the source of being is the Art of Self-inquiry

Psychologically we all know how to run after thoughts uninterruptedly 24/7 and we go on cultivating the thoughts.Thinking is a functioning of the mind.

Mind is not a thing.It is a process of minding,thinking.Its basic nature is to fragment the consciousness.Mind is a crowd with many,many self contradictory openings.Man is poly psychic,a parliament of minds.

So we cannot be total with the mind.The crowd in it is not a fixed crowd but a changing crowd.Every moment something is added and something is lost.We can never go
beyond the mind if we go on using it.

With mind everything is partial including its observation which results in residue of non-understanding and so there is always perennial conflict if we want to solve a problem with the mind with its partial observation.

Observation cannot be total if we use the instrument of mind.So for observing a problem in totality one requires a unitary entity with awareness.

Thought is an acquired process,it is not our innate nature,that is why there are
no thoughts in deep sleep state.Thoughts of belonging to a family,race,nationality,
religion,profession,caste,creed,cult etc are just utilitarian in nature.So mind means
whatsoever has been put into and superimposed on our inner consciousness.

Mind is a byproduct of upbringing,conditioning,education,culture.Basically mind
is an acquisition of habits and identifying with them and then think we are that stuff.

If mind is in a state of thinking,consciousness in it becomes opaque, non-transparent,just like a clouded sky – you cannot see the sky. When the clouds are not,you can see the sky.

If we carefully observe the thought we will come to know when one thought passes and before another thought is yet to come there is an interval.In that interval,in that gap you can feel the natural state of our witnessing consciousness.

But for many thoughts are so speedy that they cannot feel the gap between one thought and the another.In Self-inquiry thought process is slowed down and we begin to feel the gaps.So in Self-inquiry there is a fight for our innate nature of witnessing consciousness against our mental habits.Self-inquiry helps us to put aside the mental habits.

It helps us that which is natural to us,real "I'.Thinking belongs to the mind and witnessing is our innate nature.So we cannot do both simultaneously.Thinking must cease for the witnessing consciousness to be.Only through witnessing we reach the reality.

We can never go beyond the mind if we go on using it.Bliss happens only when we are total in something and we are never total in anything because of the mind.Whatever we do we attend to it partially which creates tension,anguish.

Our innate nature is unity but the mind has been collected by the way.Everything influences the mind,we go on collecting rubbish in multidimensional ways.Mental decision is majority decision of the contents of the mind but it not decision
born out of clarity.

In Self-inquiry we are dealing with a dynamic entity because every moment we are confronted with a new mind with some contents deleted and some added.So we have to inquire in a living and dynamic way.So Self-inquiry cannot have a fixed path for investigation.It is just like driving a car in a busy city during rush hour and we have to find the gaps to drive the car.

Similarly in Self-inquiry we have to be alert to find the gaps between thoughts and in the interval between when mind changes from one mode to another during transitional state.Only then "being" can happen through witnessing.

We cannot both sit and run with our legs at same time.Similarly we cannot think and witness at same time simultaneously.In Self-inquiry identity with what we are not is broken,then we don't run after the thoughts and we sit safely in our source of being which is our Self.

About the Author

Sri Suryanarayana Raju is interested in Self-Enquiry in the light of Sri Ramana Maharshi,Osho,JK.He wrote two books on "Self-Enquiry" and "Commented on Upadesa Saram and Akshara Mana Malai". available for download at http://www.esnips.com/ web/ramana-maharshi

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