Is My Mind the Cause of My Unhappiness?

If the house is on fire and you see the flames of fire you will escape. And you will know how to escape: you will find a way. When the house is on fire who worries whether you are getting out of the right door or whether you are getting our of the back door or the window? Once you feel that the house is on fire you will not even think about how to get out. You will get out first then you will think. And then you will wonder how it happened.

Buddha used us say that you ask about techniques because you are not yet aware that the house is on fire.

When you come across a snake on the path do you ask how to get out of the way? And you may not have come across a snake in your whole life. This may be for the first time. And you may never have heard anybody talking about how to get out of the way of a snake, but sill you will get out of the way – you will jump. You will not sit there and think about what to do, how to do it, whom to consult, where to find a guru. You will not think, you will simply jump.

The mind stops immediately, the moment you stop enjoying it. There is no other way to stop it. It is just like a bicycle: you go on pedaling it, it goes on moving. If you stop pedaling it, it may go a little further because of the past momentum but then it will stop. Mind needs constant cooperation, constant infusion of energy from your side, constant identification. The mind needs your help, it is a mechanism, it cannot run on its own accord. Deep down you are helping it. When the body lies there and the soul has disappeared, the mind stops instantly. It cannot work without you.

Three persons were talking. One said, ‘If in a dream you get one million dollars, what are you going to do? As far as I am concerned, I am going for a world tour. That has been my dream from my very childhood. What are you going to do?’

The other said, ‘If I get one million dollars, I am not going anywhere. I am just going to rest in my house. Why bother? I am going to stop going and just rest and relax and enjoy. Who bothers to go from here to there?

And they asked the third man, ‘If you get one million dollars in a dream, what are you going to do?’

He said, ‘I will immediately close my eyes and sleep again, to dream more to get many more millions. If you can get one million dollars in one dream, I will dream the same dream again to get one million more.’

Your mind is your dream, your fantasy. You are still in it. Even when you are thinking about how to get out of the mind, that too is a mind fantasy. And you must be enjoying it. Mind is nothing but talking to yourself. What else is it? The inner talk, the inner chattering, the rehearsing for the future, the chewing gain and again the past experiences – you are talking to yourself. It is a monologue. But we never look. We look outside, we never look into the mind. Looking into the mind is what meditation is all about. It’s also what neurofeedback is all about. Insight.