How to Quiet the Mind
PAPAJI: Om. Om. Om. Let there be peace and love among all beings. Let there be peace and love. Om. Shanti. Shanti. Shanti. Namaskar. Namaskar. Welcome to satsang.
PAPAJI; Mind is bewildered, distracted, and restless. For that purpose some are performing pilgrimages to shrines, to purify the mind or win heaven. This is the intention of a pilgrim, pilgrims and others are travelers, you can call them tourists. They also want relaxation, peace of mind, rest. They also go from beach to beach, country to country, mountain to mountain. Everyone wants rest, relaxation, peace of mind. Therefore, some become pilgrims, other become tourists. But the mind is not purified, neither by pilgrimages nor by going from beach to beach, you see. Mind is still agitated, arrogant, restless. And we are all after peace, in one way or another, we need peace of mind. Therefore, we do, we act. And some are performing penance only for the sake of peace of mind.
There is one Buddhist monastery at 22,000 feet altitude, 7,000 meters altitude. The monastery is situated at the highest altitude in the world. They also want peace of mind, freedom or liberation, but no one can find it. How to give rest to the mind? How to purify the mind? So many techniques are there. We had the question from someone here — techniques to purify the mind. I don’t think that the mind is purified by any technique. It is just to agitate the mind. Mind with the mind cannot have rest. Whatever you do with the mind, you will not have peace of mind. So, how to find peace of mind and remove this bewilderment and arrogance of the mind? So, we are all called here. We may have performed all the pilgrimages and we have been tourists also. And now we are here to discuss what the outcome of our travels is, of our pilgrimages. We can exchange our views with each other. There’s no harm. We can give and take. The mind is such a thing, unless you utilize it for something else, it will not have any kind of rest. It’s more agitated. If you touch the tail of a monkey, it’s all the more agitated. No rest to it. Mind is just a monkey.
So, how to make the mind quiet? So, this time we are here to look for the means. We can exchange our views, and that’s very well. We can discuss our search. If we can just see, some of you are very well versed in the sutras, holy books, texts. And I don’t think the people who are scholars in the texts have found peace. Because the book of knowledge, I have seen people who have gone through the book of knowledge, the original book of knowledge. They say it was composed 25,000 years ago. And before that it had just been coming from word of mouth, no one knows since when. So, this book of knowledge, the Vedas, has not yet found peace. Reading the Vedas, I have seen people who recite the Vedas by heart. I have seen them, I have met them in India. But they have no peace. This is the book of knowledge. Other Upanishads, other holy books also, I have seen people who are quite proficient in the holy books. But where is the peace of mind? No one knows. Awareness, being, bliss, has always been your nature. And we have been searching this. Maybe we have been tourists. Maybe we have been pilgrims. Maybe we have been scholars. Scholars are finding from the books but they missed it. Pilgrims try to find on the heights of the shrines, of the mountains. They missed it. Tourist visiting the beaches, forests, valleys have also missed it.
So, this is our experience that peace has not been found. So this time, why not to try staying wherever you are? And seeing, what is the root of distraction of mind, arrogance of mind. And we can find that it is only the desire, desire to achieve something, to attain something, to be something. So that has been disturbing us. So this distracted mind, bewildered mind — how to arrest its distractions? It’s to simply keep quiet and look at it. And use the same mind, same distracted mind to find its own nature, its own Self. Let us stop traveling. Let us stop pilgrimages. Let us stop studies. And now sit quiet for some time. Use the same mind. Use its own tremendous power. It has a tremendous Shakti, there is no doubt about it. It can create all this manifestation. It has created time. It has created the creators. Such tremendous power it has. It is Shakti itself.
Mind is itself the goddess Manasa Devi itself. Mind, power, Shakti, why not now bow down before this power itself? And make friends with it and see what happens. Use the same power, mind power, Manasa Devi, Manasa Shakti. Instead of running out, let it keep quiet and find out which is the origin of the Shakti. This Shakti cannot stay without Siva. And what is Siva? It’s awareness, being, bliss. And Shakti cannot stay without this thing. She is it. She stays with it. Only when we want something else, we want to go to the beach and we want to perform pilgrimages, only then Siva is concealed. No one knows that when we are giving rise to any desire then the awareness, being of our own bliss, of our own beauty, our own love, is concealed. So instead of running out, let us stop all this activity for some time. We have traveled enough. We have not to do anything. We have done enough. Millions of years we have done it now and now we want rest.
Therefore, let us try. What do we get out of simply keeping quiet and not even making the slightest effort and not even thinking a thought. We can see where we arrive. Other days some are asking, you see. I do not know how. What was their background? I have no dispute about any who are here. They all have different backgrounds. So, so if whatever suits you, you can carry on with it. I have no dispute, you can carry on with your old habits, I don’t mind, you see. But some of you, some of us, are here to really see, really try to find out what could the outcome be this time, just to stay quiet and not do anything. And see what happens.
[Papaji reading a letter from Nicole, a devotee] “Friday morning I came to satsang. During the silent meditation I had the feeling of losing consciousness as if I suddenly felt asleep. When I woke up, if I may say, because it did not last more than a second, the level of consciousness had entirely changed. The emptiness from which springs the manifestation of objects and forms was no more me, but was in front of me. Itself, like an object. The form was no more me, but was in front of me, in front of me, itself, like an object.”
Anyone would like to comment on this? ”From where rises this form and name it was not from consciousness, but from some other thing in front of me.” Anyone would like to make a comment on this? Yes. It’s a very different dimension, very beautiful, very different dimension, therefore, I’m asking everybody’s views on this. Hmmm? Huh?
PAPAJI: [continuing from Nicole’s letter] “Emptiness from which springs the manifestation of objects and forms was no more me, but was in front of me, itself, like an object. Was in front of me from where springs the form and name was no more me, but was in front of me like an object. Very, very subtle. I was prior to it, I was no reference, no knowledge of what I was, but the absolute certainty that I was prior to all beginning, prior to the apparition of the manifested world, prior to the universe, of the cosmos, of the stars, of the planets, of the earth. Here where the breath of the manifested life has not yet started I was the being, principle, without location, but with an incredible intensity. I have been there since ever. Unmovable. Timeless. Substratum of everything including emptiness which was no more than the first manifestation of the being principle. I was silence and this silence was the root, the heart of emptiness, the invisible, unique reality of the stone, of the trees, of the animals, of the human beings of the gross and subtle worlds. And all this was happening now and only now. I was only now and now was me. I opened the eyes. I saw the physical appearance of Poonjaji and the vision of the room returned to Nicole’s vision, but it was not important because I understood that I, I would never understand a thing in ordinary consciousness. I am prior to the knowledge of emptiness, prior to the creation of any concept, prior to the understanding, itself, which happens always in one instant of time. Too late. I am the silence prior to emptiness. I rest forever in the unknowingness, bliss and tranquility and eternity, beyond time, just now. With love, Papaji. Nicole.”
DEVOTEE: I can only touch her feet and bow.
PAPAJI: It’s a beautiful comment. I expected it from you. Speaking like this, what is upfront. Anyone can comment. How deep can it go? How deep can one go in the explanation? It was a very pure explanation.
[Papaji reading Nicole’s letter again] “My heart’s desire is for enlightenment.”
PAPAJI: OK. What do you mean by this? One is a desire from the head, isn’t it? One is a desire from the head and that needs something to do with your satisfaction, your concepts, with the objects. OK? To get some object of your love so that it will give you satisfaction. Now, what you speak here, “My heart’s desire is for…” (he stops reading) OK, the rest I will read afterwards. I need your clarification of this sentence because, to me, I don’t understand; therefore, please clarify, “My heart’s desire is for enlightenment”, you see. So this desire is rising from the heart.
This desire, what I want you to clarify is, from what ocean can arise? From the ocean, what can arise? And from the desert, what can arise? Hmm? From the ocean, what can arise? From the midst of the ocean, what can arise?
DEVOTEE: Nothing.
PAPAJI: Nothing? OK. Nothing. If anything could arise, it would be a wave, wouldn’t it? The tide. Like this, a wave can arise from the ocean. Isn’t it? Not a dust storm. Dust storm will arise in a desert, because a wave will not arise from a desert. So all storms arise from the head. Now you say desire for enlightenment arise from the heart. So what is this desire? And desire of any object — is enlightenment an object? No. OK. So enlightenment is not an object. Like this you can see, like this you can see. Like me, you can see. Like you, you can see. Isn’t it? So these are objective desires. Objective desires means suffering, suffering because there will be two now and whenever you attain something you will suffer because where there are two there is suffering. In separation there is suffering. So this is not that desire, isn’t it? It’s not that desire for the object. Isn’t it? It is for enlightenment, isn’t it? Where is the enlightenment now? Yes. Tell me where the enlightenment is. Enlightenment means awareness. Doesn’t it? It means bliss, it means beauty, it means love, it means being. Where is it? Can it be objectified? First of all, you tell me: can the awareness, can the bliss, can the love, can the beauty be objectified in any other object of the world?
DEVOTEE: No.
PAPAJI: No. OK. Then stop. Then stop having any desire for any object. OK? If you don’t have desire for any object which is outside, what will happen to this desire?
DEVOTEE: If there’s no object, there’s no desire?
PAPAJI: Right. That’s all. If there was no object outside there’ll be no desire. OK? Good. So there’s no desire for any object outside. So now there’s no desire, now there’s no desire and this is the heart and when you say there’s no other desire because there is no object. Now what do you feel at this moment? At this moment what do you feel? No desire for any object, therefore there’s no desire. What is this situation when there’s no desire? What will happen?
DEVOTEE: Then there’s joy? Then there is joy?
PAPAJI: Then there is…?
DEVOTEE: Joy.
PAPAJI: Joy. Yes. That’s all. Then there is joy. Then there’s awareness, joy, awareness, you see. So it has happened because you stopped your desire for any object. Desire for objects is never-ending, it’s a never-ending cycle of suffering, you see. Once you know it, you will stop desiring. Yes. The moment you stop desiring, you said it now, there’s joy. If you could do it in Amsterdam you would not have to come to Lucknow. I have not read your letter. Excuse me. I’ve not read your letter because you know what you’ve written. It will not be nice. I don’t want to take it up. I don’t want to touch on this, I don’t want to touch other things because you don’t need it, I don’t need it, neither our friends here. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why are you in a hurry to run away? How did you do it? You said joy, no? This is the first time you found joy, here, now within you. Not anywhere else. How did you do it? How did you arrive to this joy? This is your own nature. This is your nature, you see, and when you run away from this nature you are in trouble. When you separate yourself from this joy you are in trouble. Whenever you separate yourself, when you use the word “I”, it is separated. Then there is manifestation. Then there is a crocodile waiting for you, open-mouthed and he will relish you, chewing you very slowly. So this is the thing and you make a choice. Joy on one side, crocodile on the other. Now you tell me why nobody says this, no one says it. Everyone is weeping and crying in the world. No one says, ‘I have joy’. I have never heard this word at all. They will mistake pleasure. That’s something else. Pleasure is with the rubbing of the senses and that will go. That will go with the result, with the result of double suffering. So joy is freedom itself and is your nature. Joy. Don’t think that you have attained it. You say, you worked out yourself, no? You worked it out by yourself. Only I stopped, I stopped it. It was not worth going on with it.