Mind has Many Types of Thought. Every thought is a wavering, every thought is a wave. If there are no thoughts, then the mind will be non-wavering. A single thought, and you are not still. And a single thought is not a single thought: it is a very complex phenomenon. A single thought is created by many waves; a single word even is created by many waves. So only when many waves are there in the mind is a single word created, and a single thought has many words. Thousands and thousands of ripples create one thought.
Thought is the outermost, but there are waves that have preceded it. You become aware only when waves become thoughts because your awareness is so gross. You cannot be aware when waves are pure waves still in the formation of becoming a thought. The more you will become aware, the more you will feel that thought has many layers. The Thought is the last form. Before thought there are seed waves which create the thought, and before the seed waves there are still deeper roots which create seeds.
Seeds create thought. At least three layers are very easily visible for a conscious mind. But we are not conscious: we are asleep. So we become aware only when waves take the grossest form – thought. As far as we know, thought seems to be the most subtle thing. It is not. When there are pure waves you cannot even detect what is going to happen, what thought is going to be created in you. So we become aware only when waves become thought.
A single thought implies thousands of waves, so we can conceive how much we are wavering – continuous thinking, not a single moment of no thought, one thought followed by another constantly, with no gap. So we are really a wavering, a trembling phenomenon. Soren Kierkegaard has said that man is a trembling – just a trembling and nothing else. And he is right in a way. As far as we are concerned, man is a trembling. A Buddha may not be, but then Buddha is not a man…
This thought process is the process of wavering. So non-wavering means a no-thought state of mind. So first, three layers of mind have to be distinctly understood.
One is the conscious mind, and one type of thought belongs to the conscious level. These thoughts are the least important. They constitute reactions, reflexes. You are on the road and a snake passes and you jump. The snake gives you a stimulus and you respond. So one type of thought is like this: stimulus outside and a response from the periphery. Really, you don’t think: you just act. A snake is there: you act; you become aware and you act. You don’t go inside to ask what to do. The house is on fire and you run. This is a reaction from the circumference.
So one type of thought is the moment-to-moment reflex type. Even a Buddha has to react in this way. This is natural; nothing is wrong with it. If you react, then nothing is wrong with the mind – but that is not the only layer.
Then there is a second layer. This second layer is the subconscious. Religions call it “conscience”. Really, this second layer is created by the society; it is a society within you. Society penetrates everyone, because society cannot control you unless it penetrates you; so it becomes a part of you. The upbringing, the education, the parents, the teachers – what are they doing? They are doing one thing: they are creating the subconscious mind. They are giving you thoughts, structures, ideals, values. These thoughts belong to the second layer. They are helpful, they have their utility, but they are harmful also. They are instruments to move easily, conveniently in the society, but they are barriers also.
This second layer has to be understood more. This second layer consists of ideas within, fixed ideas, fixations. So, whenever your peripheral mind is working, it is not pure. Only a child is pure, innocent – he is moving moment-to-moment. There is no subconscious to interfere.
You are not working day to day & the subconscious is constantly interfering. It is giving you choices: what to choose, what not to choose. Every moment it is making you narrow. You become unaware of many things because of the subconscious. It will not allow you to be aware of everything.
This subconscious is supplying you constantly with many ideas which you think are your own. They are not. They have been fed into you just like a computer is fed. You can get information out of a computer only if previously it has been fed in. The same is the case with man also, with mind also – it is a bio-computer. Whatsoever you are getting out is just because of what has been fed in before. Everything has been fed in. This is what we mean by education, the so-called education: feeding information. So it is ready in the subconscious every moment. It is so ready, really, that even when you don’t need it, it comes up. It constantly floods into your mind, and it becomes a constant wavering, a constant rippling, a constant trembling. This subconscious mind is the root cause of so many social evils.
Really, the world could be one if there were no subconscious mind. Then there would be no distinction between a Hindu and a Mohammedan. The distinction is of the subconscious feeding, and it goes so deep that you cannot even feel how it works. You cannot go behind it. It goes so deep that you always remain in front and you feel helpless. It is a substitute – a poor substitute, for awareness. Unless man becomes totally aware, the society cannot dispense with providing you with a conscience that lay in the subconscious.
Every society is totalitarian, and every society takes your mind in such a way that you become just an automaton – and you go on thinking and deceiving yourself that your thoughts are yours. They are not! Even the very language we use is contaminated, the words we use are contaminated. We cannot use a single word without the subconscious being there. Society uses it very cunningly, and then your reactions, your reflexes, are not spontaneous.
This subconscious mind is constantly working, day and night. The mind’s working is double. One working belongs to your conscious mind - it is concerned with how to control the subconscious consciously, constantly. Then the subconscious is controlling the conscious mind - it is working to control your reactions, your actions, your reflexes, everything. Whatsoever you are doing must be controlled! This is the society’s grip on you. You are just moving in society’s hands. No value is yours. How can it be? How can a value be yours when you are not at all aware? Only awareness can give you authentic, individual values. But all these values are supplied by the society.
This is a double control: one control is on your conscious mind, your behaviour. Another control is more deep and more dangerous, and that is the control on your instinctive nature. The first part is conscious, the second is subconscious. The subconscious is created by society. And the third is the instinctive, which is given by biological nature: that which you really are biologically, that which you are born with. That’s a third part, the deepest: the biological instinctive nature.
These are the three types of thought – conscious, subconscious and unconscious. If you write down your thoughts as they happen, you will feel that you are just mad.
What is going on in your mind? What type of thinking is going on? Most of it looks irrelevant. It is not! It only looks irrelevant because the subconscious mind is too much controlling. The subconscious will not allow everything to come up. Something escapes & comes to the conscious mind, and the gaps are made. That is why dreams are difficult to understand. Because even while dreaming, the subconscious is trying to control. So, the unconscious has to express itself in symbols & images.
The mind is continually flooded – first, with outward reactions & reflexes which are not natural; second, by subconscious thoughts which have been produced by the society; and third, by instinctive nature which was been totally suppressed. These three constantly flood the mind. And because of these, one is constantly wavering. One cannot even sleep. Dreams will continue – which means that mind will continue wavering. Twenty-four hours a day, the mind is doing its maddening thing – going round & round & round.
In this state, how can one be still? How can one attain the right posture? How can one have a ‘non-wavering knowing’?
Unless these three layers are broken & the contents are expressed, the right posture [stillness] will never be achieved. The mind will not be cleansed; one will not attain the purity of perception.
So what to do? What to do to achieve this non-wavering knowing?
Three things: one, whenever living moment-to-moment, do not allow the subconscious to keep interfering constantly. Sometimes, just drop the subconscious and be in the moment. The subconscious is not needed during these moments. Only sometimes it is needed. Just sitting in the garden, listening to the birds, listening to the wind blow through the trees, to the sounds that are there in the air, the subconscious is not needed. Whenever a moment comes to relax the subconscious, relax it. It is not needed at every moment. Put it away! Become familiar with this kind of thing. There are many moments that this can be done. These moments will become more noticeable, the more one can become familiar with this.
This is how to stop the first layer of thoughts – the ‘peripheral mind’, how to relax the first layer of the mind.
What to do with the second layer?
And an individual is not the master of his mind unless he achieves this: when he wants to work with the mind, he uses it; when he doesn’t need to work with the mind, he doesn’t. And this second capacity is the greater.
It only requires the breaking of an old habit. But one has never tried it. The subconscious mind is being used constantly to control both the conscious & the unconscious. So, the first thing to do is to sometimes allow the subconscious mind to be put aside – don’t use it. And soon you will slowly, slowly have a less wavering mind. Become more capable of this. One only has to become more conscious of the workings of the subconscious mind. Just sometimes tell it to “Stop!” And remarkedly, it listens, it obeys.
Society has conditioned everyone to control themselves, to control their natural instincts – this idea has kept man enslaved, enslaved to his own natural instincts. When you feel you need to control, you are really not the master. A master never needs control. If you say, “I can control my anger,” you are not the master – because a controlled thing can erupt any moment, and you will remain constantly in fear of that which you have tried to control . There will be a constant fight. In any weak moment you will be defeated. So, don’t control. Be a master! – don t control. These are two completely different dimensions.
Be a master. This mastery comes only when you encounter your nature, your biological nature as it is, in its purity. Have you ever seen your sex in its purity without moral teachings coming in? Have you seen your sex instinct in its purity, in its pure fire? If you have seen it, you will become the master of it. If you have not seen it, you will remain a cripple and you will remain a defeated one. And howsoever you try to control, you will never be able to control it. Because it is impossible!
Control is impossible: mastery is possible. But mastery has a different root. Mastery means knowledge; control means fear. When you fear something, you begin to control. When you know something, you become the master: there is no need to control. And knowledge means direct encounter.
Instincts should be known in their purity. Drop the subconscious, because it is a constantly disturbing factor. It goes on distorting things; it will never allow you to see things as they are. It will always put the society in between, and you will see things through the society as they are not.
And, really, this is the miracle of the subconscious mind – that if you look through it things begin to be as you see them. The subconscious mind can impose any colour, any shape on things. Just put it aside; face your biological nature directly. It is beautiful! It is wonderful! Just face it directly. It is Divine! Don’t allow any moralistic nonsense to distort it. See it as it is.
So if you can do two things with your subconscious: one, allowing the fact of the outside Existence to come to you directly; and then, two, allowing the ”facticity” of the inside Existence to be realized in its purity, in its innocence – then a miracle happens. It is a miracle, and that miracle is this: that subconscious and unconscious drop. Then mind is not divided in three. Then mind becomes one.
That oneness of mind, undivided oneness, is what the Upanishads call ”the knowing” – because even the knower is not there. When these three divisions have dropped, when even this division of knower is not there, then only pure knowing, only mirrorlike knowing remains available.
Reference:The Ultimate Alchemy Vol 1, Chapter 5, A Still Mind – Door to the Divine
