Mind is Non-Existent

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: It is all very clear but I feel that I need some help. I am not sure that I can generate this understanding by myself.

The desire for assistance is part of your problem. Don't make the mistake of imagining that there is some goal to be reached or attained. If you think like this you will start looking for methods to practise and people to help you. This just perpetuates the problem you are trying to end. Instead, cultivate the strong awareness, 'I am the Self, I am That, I am Brahman, I am everything.' You don't need any methods to get rid of the wrong ideas you have about yourself. All you have to do is to stop believing them. The best way to do this is to replace them with ideas which more accurately reflect the real state of affairs. If you think and meditate 'I am the Self,' it will do you a lot more good than thinking, 'I am the little self. How can I get rid of this little self?'

The Self is always attained, it is always realized; it is not something that you have to seek, reach or discover. Your vasanas and all the wrong ideas you have about yourself are blocking and hiding the experience of the real Self. If you don't identify with the wrong ideas, your Self-nature will not be hidden from you.

You said that you needed help. If your desire to gain a proper understanding of your real nature is intense enough, help will automatically come. If you want to generate an awareness of your real nature you will be immeasurably helped by having contact with a jnani. The power and grace which a jnani radiates quietens the mind and automatically eliminate the wrong ideas you have about yourself. You can make progress by having satsang of a realized Guru and by constant spiritual practice. The Guru cannot do everything for you. If you want to give up the limiting habits of many lifetimes, you must practise constantly.

Most people take the appearance of the snake in the rope to be reality. Acting on their misperceptions they think up many different ways of killing the snake. They can never succeed in getting ride of the snake until they give up the idea that there is a snake there at all. People who want to kill or control the mind have the same problem; they imagine that there is a mind which needs to be controlled and take drastic steps to beat it into submission. If, instead, they generated the understanding that there is no such thing as mind, all their problems would come to an end. You must generate the conviction, 'I am the all-pervasive consciousness in which all bodies and minds in the world are appearing and disappearing. I am that consciousness which remains unchanged and unaffected by these appearances and disappearances.' Stabilize yourself in that conviction. That is all you need to do.

Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) once told a story about a man who wanted to bury his own shadow in a deep pit. He dug the pit and stood in such a position that his shadow was on the bottom of it. The man then tried to bury it by covering it with earth. Each time he threw some soil int he hole the shadow appeared on top of it. Of course, he never succeeded in burying the shadow. Many people behave like this when they meditate. They take the mind to be real, try to fight it and kill it, and always fail. These fights against the mind are all mental activities which strengthen the mind instead of weakening it. If you want to get rid of the mind, all you have to is to understand that it is 'not me'. Cultivate the awareness 'I am the immanent consciousness'. When that understanding becomes firm, the non-existent mind will not trouble you.