"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Mind's Resting Place


Sage Vasishtha


O Rama, doing what is appropriate, at all times, the mind should not be attached to the action, the thoughts or the object. Neither should it be attached to the heavens above, nor what is below nor in the other directions. It should not be bound to external relations, to the natural movement of the inner senses, nor to the life-force. The mind should not rest in the head, inside the palate, between the eyebrows, at the tip of the nose or in the mouth or eyes. It should not repose either in the darkness or in the light or even in the cave of the heart. The states of wakefulness, dream and sleep should not hold it and even the wide, pure space should not be its home. Unattached to the spectrum of colors, to movement and steadiness, to the beginning, the middle, the end and elsewhere, the mind should not rest either at a distance or nearby, in front, in objects nor in the self. Sense experiences, the deluded state of happiness, concepts and percepts should have no hold over the mind.

The mind should rest in pure consciousness as pure consciousness, with just a little externalized movement of thought, as if aware of the utter vanity of the objects of this world. When thus all attachments have been snapped, the jiva becomes no-jiva: whatever happens thereafter happens - whether activity or inactivity. In such a state of non-attachment the jiva is not bound to the fruits of action. Or, abandoning even that state of a little comprehension of the objects, let the jiva rest in supreme peace.

Such a liberated person, whether he appears to others to be engaged in activity or not, is forever free from sorrow and fear. All the people love and adore him. Even if in the eyes of others he appears agitated, within himself he is firmly rooted in wisdom. His consciousness is ever uncolored by happiness and unhappiness. He is not distracted by the glamour of the world. Having attained self-knowledge, he lives in constant contemplation as it were; and therefore he is unattached to anything in the universe. Having risen above the pairs of opposites, he appears to be as if in deep sleep even in the wakeful state.

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad