Kill The Mind

Sage Vasishtha

UDDALAKA continued to contemplate:

When the mind perceives the body as distinct from it, abandons its own conditioning and recognizes its own transient nature, it is victorious. Mind and body are each other's foes: hence supreme happiness follows their destruction. For, when they come together there is a host of suffering on account of their mutual conflict. The mind gives birth to the body through its own thought-force: and throughout the body's lifetime the mind feeds it with its sorrow. Thus tortured by sorrow the body wishes to destroy the mind, its own parent! There is no friend nor enemy in this world: that which gives us pleasure is considered our friend and that which causes pain is our enemy!

When thus the mind and the body are constantly engaged in mutual destruction, how can one have happiness? It is by the destruction of the mind that there can be happiness; hence the body tries everyday (in deep sleep) to destroy the mind. However, until self-knowledge is attained, one unwittingly promotes the strength of the other and they seem to function together for a common purpose - even as water and fire, though opposed to each other, work together for a common cause (cooking).

If the mind ceases to be, then the body ceases to be, too, on account of the cessation of thought-force and mental conditioning: but the mind does not cease to be when the body dies. Hence, one should strive to kill the mind. Mind is like a forest with thought-forms for its trees and cravings for its creepers: by destroying these, I attain bliss. When the mind is dead, whether the body exists or not does not matter to me. That I am not the body is obvious: for the corpse does not function!