Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands
20 December 2019
Fifth Season (8)
“Mind”
Past and future. Have you recognised it as an actual place physically? Also, you can never find the mind with thoughts in the present ‘here and now’ in life. There is only life and mind without thoughts in the ‘here and now’ in life.
And, if you observe, the mind with thoughts is looking for God in the next moment and the next moment is the future moment. The mind with thoughts is not looking for God in the moment which is ‘here and now’ in life.
If the mind with thoughts is in the past or in the future most of the time, the mind must have met God by now because the mind with thoughts is always looking for God in the next moment. The next moment is the future.
Why has the mind not met God as yet? The mind has not yet met God because God is not in the next moment. God is here and now, right here. That is why you have not met God, because the mind with a thought is always in the next moment or the past.
You say you will be happy if your kids study hard, listen to you and obey you. Similarly, you put many conditions as to how your wife or husband should be and then you will be happy.
Also, the wife and the husband will put many conditions even before they get married as to how her husband or his wife should be for him or her to be happy. You have so many conditions as to how your job should be for you to be happy. You will have many conditions as to how your friends should be for you to be happy.
Wherever you look, if you want to be happy, the mind will put conditions. If the conditions are met, then you will be happy. Is this not what the human mind is trying to do?
Your mind does not understand that it cannot put conditions on what the weather in any season should be. This is because the conditions in the mind do not make the weather to be what it is in any season. The conditions in the mind cannot make the weather in any season to be other than what the weather is in any moment.
Similarly, understand that the mind cannot put conditions on what your life should be because the conditions in the mind do not make life to be what it is in any moment. The conditions in the mind cannot make your life to be other than your life is in any moment.
A wise man and woman with this understanding are always happy in any moment in life.
The enlightened patiently share the wisdom that patience and trust in life are vital.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
We are all accustomed to putting a value on or evaluating whatever presents itself to us in our daily life. With reference to this article, do we put a value on a mind with thoughts, also celebrated by Rodin’s statue The Thinker? Is it beneficial to live a life that is seldom the life that is gifted to us, the life that is here and now? In other words, is there merit in a life that does not exist? The mind with thoughts holds you to a life that does not exist and it steals your birthright. Reflecting on and understanding the words of the wise give you back your life – vitality and happiness.
Julian Capper. UK
German Translator‘s Note:
Our mind is conditioned in such a way that we separate it into a good mind and a bad mind. The "good" mind gives us happiness, the positive. The "bad" mind gives us the opposite. So it seems to be the bad mind that makes us angry, sad, jealous, impatient, etc. We want to get rid of this part of the mind. So we work to defeat, eliminate or suppress this part of ourselves. But in reality there is only ONE mind. A single mind in which the duality of good and bad is contained. So if we want to understand what might make us angry tomorrow, we have to understand what made us happy yesterday. When we understand that being happy about a certain thing inevitably sooner or later turns into being unhappy because the mind is based on duality, the only thing left to understand is that true happiness cannot depend on the mind. True happiness, as shared by Dr. Shankar in this and other articles, is to view the mind as the fifth season of nature, that is, to accept it as it appears, sometimes good and sometimes bad.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.