Five Modifications of the Mind

Mind can be either the source of bondage or the source of freedom. Mind becomes the gate for this world, the entry; it can also become the exit. Mind leads you to the hell; mind can lead you also to the heaven. So it depends how the mind is used. Right use of mind becomes meditation, wrong use of the mind becomes madness.

Mind is there with everyone. The possibility of darkness and light both are implied in it. Mind itself is neither the enemy nor the friend. You can make it a friend, you can make it an enemy. It depends on you => you, the one who is hidden behind the mind. If you can make the mind your instrument, your slave, the mind becomes the passage through which you can reach the Ultimate. If you become the slave & the mind is allowed to be the master, then this mind, which has become master, will lead you to ultimate anguish and darkness.

All the techniques, all the methods, all the paths of yoga, are really concerned deeply only with one problem => how to use the mind. Rightly used, mind comes to a point where it becomes a no-mind.

Wrongly used, mind comes to a point where it is just a chaos, many voices antagonistic to each other - contradictory, confusing, insane.

The madman in the madhouse and Buddha under his bodhi tree - both have used the mind; both have passed through the mind. Buddha has come to a point where mind disappears. Rightly used it goes on disappearing; a moment comes when it is not. The madman has also used the mind. Wrongly used, mind becomes divided; wrongly used, mind becomes many; wrongly used it becomes a multitude. And, finally, the mad mind is there, you are absolutely absent.

Buddha's mind has disappeared, and Buddha is present in his totality. A madman's mind has become total, and he himself has disappeared completely. These are the two poles. You and your mind, if they exist together, then you will be in misery. Either you will have to disappear or the mind will have to disappear. If the mind disappears, then you achieve truth; if you disappear, you achieve insanity. And this is the struggle: who is going to disappear? Are you going to disappear, or the mind? This is the conflict, the root of all struggle.

These sutras of Patanjali will lead you step by step towards this understanding of the mind - what it is, what types of modes it takes, what types of modifications come into it, how you can use it and go beyond it. And, remember, you have nothing else right now - only the mind. You have to use it.

Wrongly used, you will go on falling into more and more misery. You are in misery. That is because for many lives you have used your mind wrongly. And the mind has become the master; you are just a slave, a shadow following the mind. You cannot say to the mind, "Stop!" You cannot order your own mind; your mind goes on ordering you and you have to follow it. Your being has become the shadow and the slave, an instrument.

Mind is nothing but an instrument, just like your hands or your feet. You order your feet - your legs, they move. When you say "Stop" they stop. You are the Master. If I want to move my hand, I move it. If I don't want to move, I don't move it. The hand cannot say to me, "Now I want to be moved." The hand cannot say to me, "Now I will move whatsoever you do. I am not going to listen to you." And if my hand starts moving in spite of me, then it will be a chaos in the body. The same has happened in the mind.

You don't want to think, and the mind goes on thinking. You want to sleep. You are Lying down on your bed, changing your sides; you want to go to sleep, and the mind continues, the mind says, "No, I am going to think about something." You go on saying, "Stop" and it never listens to you. And you cannot do anything. Mind is also an instrument, but you have given it too much power. It has become dictatorial, and it will struggle hard if you try to put it in its right place.

Buddha also uses the mind, but his mind is just like your legs. People go on coming to me and they ask, "What happens to the mind of an enlightened one? Does it simply disappear? He cannot use it?"

It disappears as a Master, it remains as a slave. It remains as a passive instrument. A Buddha wants to use it, he can use it. When Buddha speaks to you he will have to use it, because there is no possibility of speech without the mind. The mind has to be used. If you go to Buddha and he recognizes you, that you have been before also, he has to use the mind. Without mind there can be no recognition; without mind there is no memory. But he uses the mind to remember, this is the distinction - and you are being used by the mind. Whenever he wants to use it, he uses it. Whenever he doesn't want to use it, he doesn't use it. It is a passive instrument; it has no hold upon him.

So Buddha remains like a mirror. If you come before the mirror, the mirror reflects you. When you have moved, the reflection has gone; the mirror is vacant. You are not like a mirror. You see somebody, the man has gone, but the thinking continues, the reflection continues. You go on thinking about him. And even if you want to stop, the mind won't listen.

Mastery of the mind is yoga. And when Patanjali says "cessation of the mind", this is what is meant: cessation as a master. Mind ceases as a master. Then it is not active. Then it is a passive instrument. You order, it works; you don't order, it remains still. It is just waiting. It cannot assert by itself. The assertion is lost; the violence is lost. It will not try to control you.

Now just the reverse is the case. How to become masters? And how to put mind into its proper place, where you can use it; where, if you don't want to use it, you can put it aside and remain silent? So the whole mechanism of the mind will have to be understood.