NISCHALATWAAM PRADAKSHINAM

This is how the mind goes on working: It is always changing outside things, things that are somewhere else, that are on the periphery. It never changes itself. The mind is the problem, and the mind is always looking outside of itself, never within. A divorce is needed not with a particular mind, not with this mind or that mind, but with mind itself. With ”minding” itself, a divorce is needed, and only then do you enter silence.

So what is to be done?

You can do two things: one is to transform mind itself. Another, which is very ordinary and which is done everywhere, is not to try to change this mind, but to use some technique to drug this mind. Then the mind remains as it is; no transformation is needed. A mantra is given to you, a method, a certain technique: you do it with this very mind.

You are capable of dulling it and drugging it. Then it will be less active on the surface, but it will be more active in the deeper realms. It may become absolutely inactive on the surface and you may be befooled by it, but the activity will continue inside. Use a mantra: go on repeating Ram-Ram or Krishna – any name – and on the surface the mind will become silent. But inside you will feel the activity.

Just below the surface of the mind much activity is going on. Thinking continues in subdued terms, in subdued tones. Everything continues; it just goes underground. This is very easy. That is why mantra yoga is a very prevalent thing. It has appeal. Mahesh Yogi’s transcendental meditation is just this sort of self-deception. It is just a trick; you can play it. It will help in the beginning, and for a few days you will feel very much edified, elevated. Then everything stops. A plateau is reached. When the surface has become a little bit silent, then you cannot do with this technique; you cannot do anything with it. And then, by and by, the subdued notes will become again clear.

This is simple auto-hypnosis. Even if you think, "I am silent, I am silent, I am getting more silent every day,” you will begin to feel a certain silence. But that feeling is just thought-created. Stop thinking, and it will evaporate. This is Coue’s method: just go on thinking repeatedly, continuously, that you are silent, that you are getting more and more silent day by day. Go on continuously repeating this. Constant repetition will befool you. You will begin to think, ”Of course, now I am silent.” This is self-deception, and it leads nowhere. You remain the same; there is no transformation.

This sutra is not concerned with such stillnesses. This sutra is concerned with the authentic silence which comes not through techniques, but through understanding. And what do I mean by understanding? Do not fight with the mind; try to understand it. Anger is there: do not be angry against anger, do not fight anger. Rather, try to understand what anger is, what this energy is, why it comes, what the cause of it is, what the origin of it is, and where the source is. Meditate upon anger, and the more you become aware of it, the less and less anger will come to you. And when there is no anger, you are thrown into your inner silence.

Sex is there: do not fight it; try to understand it. But we are fighting with ourselves. Either we are identified with the mind or we are fighting with the mind. In both the cases we are the losers. If you are identified, then you will indulge in anger, in sex, in greed, in jealousy. If you are fighting, then you will create anti-attitudes. Then you will create inner divisions. Then you will create inner polarities. And you will be divided – no one else, because the anger is your anger. Now if you fight it, you will have double anger – anger plus this angriness against anger – and you will be divided. You can go on fighting, but this fight is just absurd.

It is as if I am trying to fight my right hand with my left hand. I can go on fighting. Sometimes my right hand will win, sometimes my left hand will win – but there is no victory. You can play with the game, but there is neither defeat nor victory.

I have heard a story about D. T. Suzuki. He was a guest in a certain family – Suzuki was a great thinker; he introduced Zen into the West, and he was himself deep in meditation – he was staying with a certain family, and because of him the family had invited many guests there – to meet him. They discussed many, many philosophical problems. The discussion was prolonged up until midnight. It was a long discussion of three, four or five hours. Everything was discussed without any conclusions, as always happens in philosophical discussions.

When the guests had left, the host said to Suzuki, "It was a long discussion and we enjoyed it, but there was no conclusion. It is frustrating.”

Suzuki laughed and said, ”I like philosophy because of this: because you can go on fighting, and there is no victory, no defeat.”

This is a very refined game in which no one is defeated and no one ever wins. This is not a vulgar game in which someone wins and someone is defeated. This is such a game that you can go on playing it. No one ever wins and no one is ever defeated; and the beauty is, moreover, that everyone thinks that he has won. This is the beauty of it – it is so.

The same happens inside also. You begin to fight with yourself because you are fighting from both the sides. No victory is possible because there is no one except you. You are playing with yourself, dividing yourself. This fight, this inner fight, is the curse of all religious persons, because the moment they become aware of the hell their minds have created they begin to fight it. But through fight, you will never move anywhere.

Many reasons are there. When you fight with your mind you have to remain with it, and when you fight with your mind it shows ignorance. The mind is there only because you have a deep cooperation with it. If the cooperation is withdrawn, the mind dissolves. Then there is no need to fight. The mind is not your enemy. It is just the accumulation of your own experiences. It is your mind because you have accumulated it. And you cannot fight with your experiences. If you do, then the greater possibility is this – that your experiences may win. They are more weighty than you.

This happens every day. If you fight with your mind, your mind wins in the end – not ultimately, but it wins and you have to yield. Real, authentic stillness is not achieved through fight. Fight is suppressive, repressive. And whatsoever is repressed has to be repressed again and again, and whatsoever is repressed will try to rebel against you. You will become a madhouse – fighting with yourself, talking with yourself, taking revenge upon yourself, yielding to yourself, being defeated by yourself. You will become a madhouse!

Do not be in a fight with the mind. This will create such noise that even ordinary persons are not so filled with inner noise as religious persons are. Ordinary persons are not even bothered like this. They go on, they take it easy. They know it is a hell, but they accept what is. A religious person knows the mind is a hell, so he denies it, fights with it, and then a double hell is created.

You cannot create heaven by fighting hell. If you want to transcend, fight is not the way. Awareness, knowing what this mind is, is the way. So what is to be done? Be aware of suppressive methods. Only one thing is essential – whatsoever you are doing, do it with full awareness. If you are angry, then be angry with awareness.

Gurdjieff used to create situations for his disciples. He would just create situations! You would have just come into the room, and Gurdjieff would create a situation in which you were insulted. Someone would say something very abusive about you, someone else would say something else that is abusive, and you would begin to get angry. The whole group would help you to get angry, and you would be unaware of what was happening. And Gurdjieff would push you into more and more anger, and then suddenly you would burst, you would explode, you would become mad.

And then Gurdjieff would say, ”Now be angry with full awareness. Do not go back, do not fall back from the anger. Just be angry.” And it is easy to fall back from it. Then he would say, ”Be alert inside and see what is happening in you. Close your eyes and see what is happening. From where are these clouds of anger coming? From where is this smoke coming? Find the inner fire inside from where this smoke is coming.”

Gurdjieff was always creating situations. He was of the opinion that if we want a more silent world, we must teach our children how to be angry, how to be jealous, how to be filled with hate, how to be violent. We must teach them! We are doing quite the opposite. We say, ”Do not be angry!” No one tells what anger is. No one teaches that if you are going to be angry, then be angry in a tactful way, then be angry efficiently, then be a master of anger. No one is teaching this! Everyone is against anger, and everyone is saying, ”Do not be angry!” The child is even unaware of what anger is, but we tell him, ”Don’t be angry,” and we go on laying down commandments: ”Don’t do this, don’t do that.”

A child was asked what his name was, and he said, "’Don’t', because whenever I do anything, either my mother or my father shouts, ’Don’t!’ So I think this is my name. I am always called by ’Don’t’.”

This creates a fighting attitude. Without knowledge you are against certain things. And if you are ignorant you cannot win because knowledge is power. Not only scientifically in the outside world, but inwardly also knowledge is power.