Page 160 - Microsoft Word - SPIRIT AND THE MIND.doc
P. 160
144 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
So too, the world of things that the mind has projected has to be negated by the clarified and concentrated mind, and then both the universe and the mind disappear. The thorn it is that pricks; the thorn it is that removes the thorn. The mind binds; the mind releases.
***
Transform the mind into an instrument of progress for liberation. Clarity of mind can be earned only by withdrawing it from external objects and teaching it through meditation to concentrate on the One behind the many. When you see the One and not the many, you are liberated from the coils of delusion. Egoism is a doctrine that binds; but the ego as the reflection of God in you liberates. However many trials and tribulations come in the way, look upon them as an unconcerned witness, with detachment, and do not let your mind be affected. Teach it this witness attitude. Man has all the capabilities in him, but he is unaware of his glory; he knows only a fraction of his power, and even that faintly and falteringly. He is degrading himself by yielding to three temptations: physical, worldly and scholastic. The scholastic temptation attracts people who are learned; it prompts them into controversy and competitive exhibitionism and ruins them by bloating their ego. The worldly temptation leads man to seek cheap renown and gain fame and favor through all means available. The physical temptation insists on beautifying the body and resorts to measures, which will hide the oncoming of age.
Foster divine thought; cultivate non-attachment; remember the fleeting nature of things. Then the work of resistance will be easy. Mind grows in strength every time you yield to desire. So in order to subdue it and shape it into a useful tool, reduce desire.
***
Mahashivarathri is dedicated to the disintegration of the aberrations of the mind, and so, of the mind itself—through the worship of Shiva, God. It falls on the eve of the smallest moon of the year, as the waning of the moon is the symbol for the waning of the mind.
The moon as well as the mind whose deity it is, each have sixteen phases. On Mahashivarathri, fifteen of these have disappeared, and there is just a streak of the moon in the sky. The new moon that follows will not even have a streak visible.
