The Mind and the Five Sheaths

Mind is present inside the body amidst the five sheaths (Pancha Koshas). The five sheaths are gross body sheath (Annamaya Kosha), Pranamaya Kosha (pertaining to the life force), Manomaya Kosha (mind sheath), Vijnanamaya Kosha (intellect sheath), and Anandamaya Kosha (Bliss sheath).

Above the mind sheath is Prana(life force) and below it is discrimination power. Both of these are related to Fire. Mind is related to Water. The Moon is the presiding deity for the Mind. Hence coolness is its nature. Because of the presence of life force above and discrimination power below, the Mind melts and gets transformed into water. Water’s nature is to flow towards a lower level. It does not have the nature of flowing upwards. Hence the mind always wanders around the sensory and worldly pleasures. It cannot voyage towards the pure and higher stages. To divert the mind towards higher realms, spirituality is of utmost necessity.

Baba (thought for the day)

If we listen to Baba’s words and see it in our own life, we get aware of it differently than when we just read it. Today’s thought for the day is about the mind and it is great how he describes it, because we can see the difference between the mind and the breath and the intellect, the nature of the mind is cold and goes downwards, the nature of the intellect and the breath, the discrimination power and the energy level are related to fire and go into an upward direction.

In listening to his words and thinking it over, we see it in our own life and Baba talks here about the mind and it brings that mind reality up in our own life.

Thinking over Baba’s word we get to the right conclusion if we see it in our own life, otherwise, we are not able to understand it. He is atman and not the mind and not the body, therefore, he knows and we cannot know on the mind level, if we are too much inti the mind, but in listening to him our insights in the dream begin to make sense. If we listen to Baba’s words and think it over, we are able to absorb it.

When Baba tells in our dream or in the ‘insight’, and he warns us that in this room we will not get the right answer, it means it is different from him and in the body and in the mind. It is the wrong level, if we look for answers. He is always on that level of atman and Baba dreams are also on that level and we understand it seeing it in our own life, because he talks about the mind and that is here mentioned as cold. 

However much time it takes, if we get into it and listen and see it in our own life, we get to the right conclusion, because he mentions the difference between hot and cold.

Our dreams are expressed in pictures and we can see if it is hold or cold. If it is mind and not even water, but ice and snow, also for that is a reason, if there is no worming up of the energy level in the breath or the fire of the intellect.

How do we understand it? He is always on the level of atman and that is the observer. In listening to Baba’s words, we can absorb it in our own self and we get the meaning of it in seeing it in our own life, otherwise, it is not possible to understand it, but like that it begins to make sense.

If we do not listen to his words, we will not get the right answer. If we are on a mind level, we also do not get the right answer. If we think that we can understand him on the mind level, we are deluded and live in a dream and if we think we know and we don’t now on what level we are, we also live a dream, it has nothing to do with truth and atman.

He always is on the atman level, it means he knows and the mind cannot get there.

When he tells us that we are really not in love, it is because there is not heart, only mind and if he tells that we do not know his heart, it is the same, the mind is too strong, we don’t listen to the heart. When Baba said in the dream, ‘give, give, give, I will not give, you lived a dream that is your problem not mine.

He tells us like that again that it was mind only, not the right level, because it went always in direction of least effort. It was not Baba’s problem, because he is not in the mind, he is atman and it is not his problem if we do not listen. If we tried to talk about Tapas, spiritual work and that we have first to discriminate and someone begins to argue about it, it is not possible to see it our own life, because there is only arguing left, so instead of seeing it in our own life, we have to be silent to avoid arguing and there was no way to get aware of it.

If it is not on the heart level, because if it would have been, it would have been Baba’s concern, it is only not his problem, because it was mind.

Baba is love, if we are in the mind, we are not in love. Asking Baba to fulfill our dreams and to give us what we want is not exactly based on love.

Baba explains in that thought for the day how to find the mind, between the five sheaths.

What are the sheaths? 

1 - The body is related to food; 2 - Prana, the breath and energy; 3 - we have the mind and; 4 -the intellect and finally; 5 - ananda (heart).

We all know the gross body level and also the energy level which is connected to the breath and the mind, but the mind is different, it is not hot, it is cold.

We have the breath, the energy related to fire and on the other level of the mind we have the intellect, also related to fire, only the mind is related to the moon and water, it is cold.

If we meditate with Soham, the breath, we can transcend the mind and go beyond it. Below the mind is the discrimination power in the intellect. In telling us that both are related to fire, we can get aware of the difference between the energy level and mind and the intellect and mind. He tells us that the mind is water and related to the moon and therefore, it is cold.

The energy of the breath is hot and the intellect has the quality of fire and in that environment the mind melts into water and the mind goes by itself into sensory and worldly pleasure. Therefore, if someone tells us the takes the path of least effort, he goes into sensory and worldly pleasures.

Hence the mind always wanders around the sensory and worldly pleasures. It cannot voyage towards the pure and higher stages.

Water cannot flow upwards, it always goes downwards and the path of least effort and if someone tells us that he goes the path of least effort we know it is the mind only.

If there is no spirituality we focus on the mind only and not on higher realms and therefore, he tells us that spirituality is a necessity.

We have to get aware of it, with Tapas (spiritual work) we go in an upward direction and beyond the mind.  

If we are in the dream in an environment of ice as I had been before I left my ex, it means it is the mind and it was not possible with the breath and knowledge, the intellect to keep the upward direction beyond the mind that it would be flowing and water, it was ice.

With meditation we go beyond the mind and the energy is directed upward.  

If there is nothing but mind, because it was not possible to talk or because he began only to argument and abuse, it went in the wrong direction. 

It was only in the mind and it had nothing to do with atman, it was not even water, it was ice and it was a warning, he didn’t care how we felt, he took only advantage of it, he had no feelings.

In such a situation we are not able to discriminate anymore, because the intellect is not working. My ex went always into arguments and when I tried to talk about Tapas, he began to argue and it was not possible to talk on that level, it would have been misunderstood. He began to question what Baba had said in the interview room and he knew better. I thought he had lost his mind, but it was worse, much worse, because the struggle was on the energy level, the vampire.

It was much worse than I thought it was.

He didn’t only destroy it by doing that, he lived from that energy level. If there was a feeling of love, he had to destroy it, it felt like he couldn't take it, he was constantly nagging and arguing and harassing, he never stopped. 

Whenever I tried to see it in our own life as I knew we should do it, he made it impossible with arguing about it, there was finally the feeling of no way out. I usually kept it for myself to not go into arguing and prayed to Baba to show us a way out of it. I said to keep the level of energy low as he had fits of anger and he was cruel and abusive and once he hit with a pot on my head and I could have been killed by that.

I said, Baba will find a way and I listened to Mafu tapes to feel better. But there was a negative result and energy I was not aware of.

Meditation is the way to go beyond the mind and by discrimination we know we should go in the upwards and spiritual direction, moreover, if we have been a long time with Baba and he was there also six months several times, but as Baba said in my dream later he took only advantage of it.

The energy should not go downwards, everybody knows that, if he has been some time with Baba in the ashram. It is natural law if we are on the spiritual path that it goes in an upward direction into light.

But with him it was only mind, impossible to use the intellect, because he was arguing and went into abuse as soon as I tried to tell that it was not the right level and that made it impossible to go on.

There was no discrimination and therefore, there was no water, but because he enforced the mind level, it was only ice left and no possibility to get out of it, because he enforced the mind on us and it felt like a mind prison. It was not possible to get out with the help of the intellect, and I just said, Baba will find a way.  

When Baba said in his dream that I had to go and make peace with him, because in that mind state which was icy and cold, there will never be peace. It is not the heart and not love and if there is no love, there will be no peace. Baba is in Prasanthi Nilayam and that is highest peace.

Love in thoughts is Sathya (Truth); Love in understanding is Shanthi (Peace); Love in action is right conduct. (Baba)

There was no love in thoughts, no truth, there was no love in understanding and no peace and there was no love in action and no right conduct.

In the mind is no love. Baba is in Prasanthi Nilayam, highest peace. 

But it was all understood on the mind level and there was no peace. It was not possible to go even with meditation out of the mind, because the mind was enforced by him, it was a mind prison.

The mind is interpreting it in his way and always in the interest of the mind. And when Baba said in the dream to my ex that I should go back to my lovely husband, Baba talked on the heart level. The only problem was with my ex that he never was on the heart level, but he was deluded by his own dream and we were lucky about that, because he let us go.

He would never have let us go otherwise.

It was not possible to talk to him. We were glad to be able to leave that mind prison.

He should have noticed that Baba would make the decision and not his mind, and Baba is always atman, therefore, he talked to him on the atman level.

He would only send me back to a lovely husband, if that husband would be present on the heart level and that was not the case, he was never on the heart level and there was never a feeling of husband. It should have told him also that if Baba would tell us to not go back that we would not go back, but because my ex was in the mind only he didn’t get it and expected Baba to send us back to the lovely husband, even if he had never been that. That was also the mind, it felt like we had been in a fight with divinity … It sounded absurd. He was not on the right level.

If I told him that I had never the feeling that he was ‘husband’, instead of looking at it, he began to fight and went into abuse, he didn’t care how we felt, as he took only advantage of it.

So the environment was ice only and that was a warning, because I didn’t know really how bad it was. I was constantly listening to Mafu tapes to feel better to be able to go along.

It felt like a shock that waking up to the reality how bad it really was. I tried to make it work because of the daughter, she should have a father, but it didn’t work.

With the help of tapes I was listening to Mafu and that made me feel better, the ice was a warning, but that thought for the day makes clear why ice and why not water.

There was another insight and Baba said he was the insight and the following step, he was with vampire teeth in my dream and also that was a warning that it was bad and much worse than I thought it was and he had a second face and a very long nose. 

I couldn’t face it. It was just too much and too bad and no hope and it was too shocking to get aware of it.

The vampire was ice-cold and no exchange, only taking advantage of it. He was not interested in it how we felt and before Baba left the body he said in the dream that he took just advantage of it. He would have destroyed our life without second thought.

Baba is not the mind, therefore, he warned him, in that room he will not get the right answer.

But he was not able to listen. He ignored the warning and went ahead.

Baba is not the mind and not the body and we have to realize that we are atman as well.

After we had left, we did not go back and he said in my dream that we didn’t listen and that we had to get a divorce. And my ex ignored it, said he will take the path of least effort that was mind, because it is the water that is flowing downwards only and takes the path of the least effort.

It means no love and only problems and aggravation, no lovely husband and even more so no loving father.

After we left we had to face the mind and his mind reality and it was much worse than I thought it was. That shows us the mind and why, because it is the mind telling that he will go the path of least effort and the mind is the enemy.

It was again mind, no effort to get aware of it, no way going in upward direction, telling us that someone said that divorce is not possible, when everything was mind level, just creating every possible problem he could. Husband is heart level, if he would have been on the heart level there would never have been a problem. That is why he never felt like husband and of course, Baba could not send us back to the lovely husband if there was no heart level and it was only the mind.

Only the heart is on the level of atman and divinity is on that level and husband as well.   

And only the mind can go the path of least effort, as Baba tells us in that thought for the day, the water flows always downwards and it goes the path of least effort.

He put what Baba said in question and even Baba’s interviews and Baba’s words and that we had to get an answer, he knew everything better and it felt like nuts to me and I listened to Mafu tapes to not waste my time. 

It was much worse than I thought it was. He was never a caring and loving husband, he did not care at all and he was stupid and only in the mind. He was giving the answers thinking he was able in the mind to give better answers, he lived of the good energy, it was the reality vampire.

Everybody knows that Baba is the knower and the mind doesn’t know and not the opposite way round. In putting the interview in question he put the divine love in question and destroyed it and therefore, was no peace.

There was no love in his thoughts and his understanding. He was more or less telling, divinity doesn’t know, but my mind knows much better. That was stupid, but the point was, the energy, he destroyed the positive effect the Baba interview had on us and that was the result and ruin was in the air.

He created doubts and that is spiritual ruin.  

If we read that thought for the day and listen and are able to absorb, we understand why there was no way he could understand it, because we have to listen to his words and not put the divine words in question and know better, that is really stupid.

He never tried to understand his dreams and to learn from it, he forgot it and let me work it out for him. But he expected Baba to tell me, ‘go back to your lovely husband’. That felt really nuts, he was that blind, it flattered his ego.

That was his dream and only a dream, because he had never been the lovely husband. But before we left the ashram Baba said to his daughter in her dream and she was only six that her father is stupid, that he doesn’t know what he is doing and that he is destroying himself and if she goes back to him, he will destroy her as well.

That was how he sent us back, there was no way going back, because it was only the mind and going the path of least effort and there was no heart level.

We went there in his mind to go and make peace like we would have been fighting with divinity it was his own mind. I wondered why it was like that in his mind and he couldn't see that it was a call to go to Prasanthi and joy and not what he made it look like a punishment to go and make peace.

It felt that strange to me that he was able to get to such a conclusion and I wondered, but now that seems also clear.

He didn’t send us back of course, because it was not possible to live in peace with that state of mind of her father, it destroyed us. There was ruin in the air and not love.

And he said in my dream when leaving the body, ‘no more husband, nothing left but an empty Western shoe’. He couldn’t send us back to the lovely husband if there was nothing left but an empty Western shoe, could he.

It was his dream only that I should go back to the lovely husband, it was his dream, and in reality it was different. He expected his dream to become true as he had expected before all his dreams to become true and that didn’t happen. He was not able to change.

The message was indirectly in the his dream that someone else would decide, not his sick and perverted mind. He told us that it was all perverted and first I also didn't understand it. It was in the air that there would be a change, the dreams told him and if he would have told me to go back and we would have gone back, it means if he tells to not go back, we will not go back, it worked both ways. 

Not his mind was deciding again fooling us into something what arranged only him and he could take advantage of it as much as he liked.   

He cannot tell me to go back to the lovely husband if there is only an empty Western shoe left. He was not listening to Baba’s words and he didn’t care about his message. He didn’t live Baba’s message.

Money lost, nothing lost. Health lost, something lost. Character lost, everything lost. (Baba)

Baba ‘engaged’ me with someone else probably to get out of it, as we were still in touch, it took that long to get out of it, it was a mud hole. I got aware of it too late when the rain came, the mud came in that fast, the child was already lost in the mud and I had to go out of it fast, otherwise, I would be destroyed by it as well and behind Baba’s voice asking, ‘and what now?’

That was scary.

There are no answers on the mind level, only aggravation. He was not using the intellect and there was no meditation, no Soham, the was not water but ice, an environment of ice, the mind state enforced by that. It was a shock to get aware of it how bad it was and how bad we felt in that relationship and how glad I was to get out of it.

There was ruin in the air, he was standing in my insight in a ruin and he said it was all he could get in garage sales. He was wearing a red woman skirt and black fur jacket, it was totally ridiculous what he got in garage sales and of the house of self-realization that is Baba’s house was nothing but a ruin left. 

He would have ruined us all, he did everything to get there. The fur jacket in black was Tamas and said that he went for the appearance only, fur and a woman jacket and the skirt as well, it was short and red. Red is passion and it was somehow the passion of a woman, hoping he would get it by someone else, taking just advantage of it.

We had to go and make peace with Baba in his mind, because he had put Baba’s words and all what he had said in the interview room in question, he was destroying that comforting feeling of love, he wanted us to feel bad. He destroyed love, the good feeling and Baba’s presence. On that level was no peace possible ever, but I didn’t know that it was that evil.

But that was the reason why he was not able to see that it was a Baba call and actually the highest for a normal devotee. It was because he tried to destroy the love and the good memory of the interviews we had with Baba, constantly that envy or jealousy in the air that seems why he got to the conclusion in his dream that we had to go and make peace with Baba.

As he took only advantage of it, he couldn’t take it if we felt okay, he had to feel better and he got there in abusing in that sense even Baba’s love and care, we can look in the abyss of the mind and the sick side of it, all perverted.

We have to get to a right answer or a right conclusion, on the mind level it is impossible.

We have to listen, think it over to be able to absorb the wisdom in our own self.

That is how we understand insights and dreams, as Baba said in my dream, he is the insight and the following step.  

Husband is heart level and he had for sure never been on that level. 

In his mind he thought we had to go and make peace, because he had disturbed that peace, that was why vampire and Baba had two faces the other was a very long nose and it felt like he fooled about everybody, about that Baba Lila, but also about being a devotee, in reality he was just taking advantage of it.

He was putting about everything in question and he argued about it. That is why he felt like we had to go and make peace and for me it was a call, but I couldn’t show him how much joy I felt to be able to leave, not before we were in the air and gone, because I didn’t want him to know that for me it was a gift when he saw it like a punishment, but it was him, he did that in his mind. It must have been the result of putting the interview and divine words in question.

I was listening to Mafu tapes, that made me feel better and go ahead, I didn’t want to waste my time and I was too far away from my own country and my family and when I wrote them, I didn’t even get an answer. With Mafu I compensated and stayed in the good energy and I was not aware of how bad it really was.

It felt like he couldn’t take it when I felt good, he had to act against it and destroy it and because of that reason I didn’t show him the joy I felt to go and see Baba, to not get him to the idea that he had to destroy it and that he could get it in his mind to not let us go.

I guess he didn’t realize the change, he was too occupied taking advantage of it and to blame and to abuse to notice.  

He felt like he was in a constant state of envy or jealousy, he compared himself constantly with his former boss and was never happy.

If we felt okay, he didn’t stop talking and nagging until we felt bad again.  So I was constantly listening to Mafu tapes to feel better, so he could again take care of it that I felt bad afterwards, so I had to listen to Mafu again. It was on the energy level and that is the vampire and why Baba was in the dream as a vampire.

It was a shock getting aware of it and too much, too bad.

It felt like a warning and all I wanted in the end was getting out of it. It was all negative, nothing was positive about it and it was dangerous.

The intellect he didn’t use, it was only about taking advantage of it and we were there and served that purpose. I tried to make the best out of it.

It was stupid of us to go into that relationship, as he was only taking advantage of the situation and he was never in his heart, but in the ashram we couldn’t see it. There was Baba’s love and we thought it would go on like that. I had to get answers and it was easy to take advantage of that, but that was not a marriage.

He got always to a wrong conclusion and a Guru has the task to get us to a right conclusion.

I tried to tell him, that it cannot work like that, but he began to argue about it, so that it felt like I was the stupid one, so I stopped talking and said to keep the energy down, that he will find a way. He abused it. I always told him that it cannot work if there is no heart level. I just answered, Baba will find a way.

He always went into arguing and abuse and harassing and therefore, it was not possible to get anywhere but a mud hole. It didn’t work, he lived that mind reality described here in telling that the mind is cold and like water.

It is like water if we use the intellect and the breath to get into an upward direction, the mind goes by nature downwards and always will if we don’t do anything about it.   

We don’t go to Baba to listen to the mind only, for that we do not need to go to a Sai Baba. But anyhow he was not interested in anything but taking advantage of it.  

Tapas (spiritual work) is first discrimination (using the intellect, knowing that in the mind we cannot get the right answer. Baba is atman, no mind and we are mind not atman, it is only common sense that we do not know the right answer, but he knows, and second we have to see it in our own life (that is just what we tried and it was not possible with him at that time) and third going on no matter what obstacles are there.

It was impossible with my ex. If I tried, he began to argue and harass.

So it ended in telling him that it cannot work, because there was no discrimination and as he began to argue, it was a wrong level, because the mind goes by itself downwards into the senses and that is the only reality he wanted to live.

It was not possible to talk about Tapas, spiritual work, he wanted to be right and if I mentioned it, he began to argue and harass and making fun of all the interviews we had with Baba, he also made fun of it that in his dream I had to go and make peace with him.

He didn’t know what he was doing and he went on like that, ignoring everything, enforcing the mind level and ignoring everything what Baba had said or what I sad, we got only stupid answers.

He was stupid. So it was not possible to talk about Tapas (spiritual work). It was not possible to talk about it without that he began to find faults, to make fun of it or that he began to argue …

The most amazing thing after all - or was it a shock - was that he believed, because Baba had been inside in his dream on the heart level that when he said to me, ‘go back to your lovely husband’ that it would happen like he saw it in the dream.

That was wrong. 

He didn’t listen when I told him that he never felt like husband, if he would have cared, he would have known that it cannot work out on that level. 

But he didn’t care, he only wanted to take advantage of it and so he didn’t realize that he had never been on a heart level and he was always only in the mind taking advantage of it and that it was the end approaching of that abuse on the mind level.

Going to Baba was a gift and he saw it as a kind of punishment he had inflicted on us, but that was in his own mind and after it was also his problem and no more ours.

But it was not that easy. We were still in touch because of his daughter and he went on with his mind poisoning and I guess that is why Baba engaged us with someone else, to make sure we get out of it and on another level.

And that is how we can understand the difference between mind and atman and his words on a deeper level. 

It makes such a difference and it is very important to know what is related to fire and what is related to the moon and water and how we experience it in our own body and in our own nature and in our own life.