The Characteristics of the Mind

 Without giving up sloth, how can Truth be known? Without giving up passion, how can devotion take root? Be serene and calm in stress and storm - that is the Satwic or pious path to win the Lord, the Truth. The mind is a wonder, its antics are even more surprising. It has no distinct form or shape. It assumes the shape or form of what it is involved in. Wandering from wish to wish, flitting from one desire to another is its nature. It causes loss and grief, elation and depression. Its effects are both positive and negative. The mind will gather experiences and store them in the memory forever. It does not know the art of giving up! As a consequence, grief, anxiety and misery continue simmering in it. It is worthwhile to know the characteristics of your mind and the ways to master it, for you will ultimately benefit! Teach it sacrifice (tyaga), and you will become spiritually wise (yogi)! 

If we see it in our own life, we wonder what is sloth, how did we experience it. And what about passion? In these words is the characteristics of the three gunas, but not just as principle, but the experience. We experience the stress and the storm and how it is to keep inside calm and in sathva to get to truth.

And we go on seeing the wandering mind and that we wonder about it and we also wonder why lots of people seem to have not even a feeling for the mind yet and the reason is, we don't listen enough, if we listen we have to get a feeling for it, because with his words it gets alive.

We can see in our inner vision the mind that it has not distinct form and shape and it takes the shape or form of our life and therefore, we always should see it in our life. It is in our life we have to face the patterns of a mind that experiences things and makes out a memory forever.

I just had that experience with my sister last week she mentioned something that happened in my parent's house she was still a child and then she told me that it had nothing to with before and I told her but, it has everything to do with before, in one instant the whole parent's house was back.

We talked about the mirror and by that she just showed me that she was not calm enough to get aware of it, because the mirror is a pattern and has always to do with truth and we cannot see it when we are not calm. 

I was surprised of how much emotions where coming up in that moment, the parents were present, the way they were thinking etc. and the emotional tension coming up in that moment was kind of amazing, but it was not finished, as she was that emotional she had no idea what it was and why and she turned it upside down and blamed me for it that it came up and that is the principle of Tamas and if I say nothing and don't put limitations I am going in her game and that turns as well into Tamas.

So it is not done with just being aware of the mirror and the tension and the pattern, we also have to be able to handle it.

When we see it in our own life the words get alive as they are based on experience. He tells us why it cannot be known, sloth is one of the reason why we cannot know truth and if there is no truth, there must be a reason for it and passion, shouting at others and finding faults with others is not going to do it. We have to stay calm and use discrimination.

We cannot know truth if we are not calm and settled in the mind and he goes on telling us why.

The mind is wandering, sometimes it is elated and sometimes depressed, we don't go beyond the mind if we live in it, we have to go beyond it.

We get aware of it by listening to his words.

We get aware of the storm, so that what happened last week with my sister was actually a storm. It was not just an argument as it got up all those emotions of the past and she was telling me it had nothing to do with before.

That we get aware of it when it is true and not true. But arguing about it is not the right thing to do.

We have truth and right action, when it is right action it will be peaceful, when not it will be everything else but peaceful. We will be on the battlefield. When we are in the storm and in the stress, we listen to people telling, but that is normal, it means we don't even get aware that it was a storm. 

The mind is in the shape we have been grown up in the pattern of the family and our life, therefore, we have to see it in our own life and then those words come alive and we can see it really and it is such an amazing feeling to see it and getting aware of it, that are not words, that is experience and insight.

I felt as well depressed after that not expected outburst on her part, with meditation we called it entstressing and it is a way of handling it.
And some other experiences were coming up the mind what seemed to be stored forever and the question is how to let go as he is telling us in his words that the mind has the tendency to never let go of it. Or I  thought I did let go, but with the words of the sister it was all back again instantaneously, and he is telling us why it is back and we shouldn't feel bad about it, it is just the mind.

Is there a better way than telling us, the mind doesn't know the art of giving up?

That was just the experience in it, grief, anxiety and misery continue to simmer in it.

But listening to his words and thinking it over is a means of getting aware of it, it gives us a feeling for it.

Sloth is Tamas and Rajas is passion and Sathva is purity or calmness in our mind, but here we get the feeling for it. The observer is only in sathva, not in the other gunas. The observer alone knows truth. Therefore, if we went to be able to see the mirror and the Patterns in our life, we have to be calm and settled in our mind and not take any issue and problem to bring up the dirt of the whole life. With meditation we go beyond the mind, but when thinking over his words, we get aware of the experience of it, we can see it and feel it and we get a very clear understanding of the mind.

If we don't know the difference between mind and Atma, it is our own mistake, we don't listen to his words. If we would listen to his words, we would get aware of it and we have a very clear feeling for it, in his words is the experience of it.

  

In the last sentence he tells us to go for sacrifice, tyaga and as I was not sure about it I googled it and it is as well explained as giving up the result. It explains that way as well why we give up the result, we don't get attached on it, we just do it for another reason, not for the result. We just do it usually in a sense of duty.

That helps to get out of the mind and to be able to see it, to stay calm and unattached and to live a more uplifting life in peace and not in the mind. But we will constantly be confronted with the mind. In listening to his words he is telling us why it is like that and that is how the burden is taken away. When we see the false as fault, it falls away by itself.

   

The mind is wandering and taking the shape of what it was and has been, there are patterns formed and the mind is expressing itself in those patterns.

It is the difference between peace and war. 

It there is truth and right action it results in peace, if there is untruth and not right action, it results in war and there are all different mind states in between. 

If we are on the spiritual path we have to be established in truth and know right action to be in peace.

That means inside in peace, what that is on the outer level in the relationship I don't know, but I don't think peace is possible if it is Tamas, if she tells something and it is not right action and then she just tells, the same to you, it feels rather like misery seeks company it is not serene.

The mirror is based on truth only. 

He tells us it is worthwhile to know the characteristics of our mind and the ways to master it, and that is how we get aware of the characteristics by listening to his words and thinking it over, we get in our own experience and see it in the light of the self. 

And if we do that we will benefit.  

Only the self is able to experience the level of the self and Atma, not the mind, not the body, therefore, if we try to express it with the mind, we get stuck in it and we don't have the right words or we show like he said yesterday in a pompous way our own ignorance. It means we have no words, but when we take his words, we get the insights and the feeling for it. He is not just talking about the principle, he explains in his words the experience of it.