You are the Victim of the Mind

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Take the case of someone who says, I don't like what Maharaj is saying, so he gets up and walks out. What has happened? He has reacted to the meaning of a particular word or set of words which has come from the mind. So the mind says: I don't like what is being said that thought is converted into words. And again the mind takes the meaning of these words - that I don't like this - and the action takes place of his walking out. If similarly, as the basis of all thought, one accepts some definite principle, then all one's future actions will be based on it. This firm base is the result of accepting the meaning of the word which has come from a particular thought. My guru told me that I am Parabrahman and nothing else. I have accepted that with great conviction and therefore whatever other things appear seem to be palpably false. At one stage for example I was extremely strong; fifteen or twenty years later I had to use a stick. And later on, even the stick becomes useless. So all these changes in the body are not mine. Whatever disease has come, it refers to the area of body only.

All thoughts that come will be based on the firm primary thought "I am the Parabrahman." Unless one adheres to this fundamental principle - and most of us don't 0 we accept that we are the body and continue as such till our deaths. But if the guru's words are accepted with total conviction, our entire destiny, our entire life, will be transformed.

I am splitting off what you are in yourself from whatever thoughts that occur to you. I stated you are not the thoughts but that if you embrace the thoughts as yourself you actually become the thoughts. So I drive a wedge between you and those thoughts, between you and your assimilation of any thoughts or words. Earlier I had said that you become the sum total of all the thoughts and whatever meanings you attach to them. You are the victim of the thoughts, of the meaning of the words, which you entertain as "yours." I gave you the example of that fellow who had accepted the meaning of the words "I have been offended," had wholly swallowed the concept and so made it his own.

In driving that wedge, I say "You are apart from thought or the meaning of the words." What are sattva-gunal, rajas-guna, and tamas-guna? Sattva-guna is doing all the tricks, and you say "I am doing this," you accept the actions of sattva-guna, rajas-guna and tamas-guna as your own! You are not that either. There is the example of a married woman who had been in the family way for three months, and somebody made a forecast that the fetus is that of a very great person, of the standing of Lord Bhagavan Sri Krishna. The child to be born will be as great or even superior to Lord Krishna. That concept or that thought is given. So this lady accepts the thought in toto; embracing the thought, its meaning, as herself, the child must be born as great as Krishna.

The sikness of which I am accused, of which my body is accused, is actually a great blessing, because it is not what I am. But it is also like that lady in the family way. I am also in the same state. That lady, because of the concept given to her, would indeed believe that her child is as great as Krishna. Similarly, my guru has given me this conception that I am the Parabrahman. So that is always there. So then what is the impact of this sickness? The sickness is going to deliver me into the Parabrahman state, because I have accepted Parabrahman as my real nature. I am the Parabrahman only! So this sickness is helping the delivery into the Parabrahman. therefore, the culmination of the sickness is Parabrahman.

You are a slave to the meaning of words, to the meaning of the mind. Therefore, you are the victim of the mind.