Control of the mind is penitence

We know life is a mirage, but we are sloshing in it and this leads us astray. The search for God, Bhagwati or for deities are imaginings of the mind. A troubled and agitated mind begets different figures and shapes. We spend most of our time visualizing God or a blade of grass, world’s reality and unreality and our friends and relatives. We are aware that, as from a passenger train, we should get off at our destination, but we are unable to abandon our habits. We increase attachment, we make a distinction between those who join our side and those who don’t. We assert we are this or that. This because of weakness in the mind which is at the same time liberator and prison. It is mind that make us use our body in certain ways, while it is feeling hot or cold, while we are facing life’s sufferings. Time will come when perception will cease and our imaginings will fade away. For us at that time there won’t be any imaginings but even so we keep ourselves busy with trifling activities.

Yesterday a rich man came and see me. He said that there was a house for sale and that it could be bought for fifty or sixty thousand rupees. He wanted me to tell him whether he should have bought it or not. I told him it was up to him to decide. Besides I told him that God gave him daily bread. He was alone in the world, so who did he want to buy the house to? I told him he had house already, and money and cars. Who did he want to worry about? He said his mind kept pressing him. Ten years before he hadn’t anything. Now he had everything but his mental complications were increasing. His desires, although he knew consequences would have been negative, were pressing. He knew that property management, because of the mental tension, would have cut his life short by ten years, still, he asserted that he was desperate. We all know quite well that, but we beget tension and we think we are fine. We forget what we intended at birth.

Mind terrify us like an evil spirit. It make us travel in season and out of season and turn us into stray dogs. Protecting ourselves from this is penitence. Penitence isn’t realized through the mortification of the flesh but through the control of our mental state. If mind is agitated and troubled, body control isn’t of help. If mind becomes pure, penitence is complete. Gods bow before a person who has controlled the mind. The ones who mortify their body are insulted, even beaten. They are accused of breaking earth’s laws. Earth’s laws and rules, sometimes called religion, demand satisfaction and the minor deviation causes extreme mental suffering. In such a state of things, God and the Bhagwati keep away as well as friends and relatives. It’s our mental weakness that causes such a situation. Through determination we can free ourselves from the trouble of the mind which lets our imagination wander. We take the bait like a fish and throw our life away.

Because of the weakness in our mind we aren’t able to sense the truth. Must we really do what we are doing? While we are dealing with our problems and with friends and relatives, we cannot emulate the sieve that, although it is immersed in water, doesn’t keep even a drop. We are so attached to illusions that life degenerates and we act as a check to success. We live among our wives, friends and relatives but we feel alone. It is mental tension that causes our misery. If during our progress we learn how to accept our lives’ summer, monsoon season and winter, we can live happily. Attachment will cause tension. We will be busy escaping the great truth inside us, the great penitence, detachment, discrimination and knowledge, and peace and prosperity that are a right of ours. Even solar system Gods cannot imagine such a peace and prosperity because they are so greedy that they are completely present in our senses. If they have food they are satisfied, if not they cause trouble. They want that we let ourselves be caught by yearning, envy, hate, sex and arguments. In lifetime because of this weaknesses we let good things slip. Who doesn’t know that we cannot catch our own shadow? It moves forward every time we try to run after it. If we do an about-turn it follows us. Free yourselves from the dirt in your mind, from longing for this or that.

To God, the Truth, the Great Unknown, we tell that anything we do is imaginings of the mind, that our mind and our body aren’t harmoniously connected, that mind goes one way and body goes the other way. As mind, body and words are going in different directions, how can we say that we have completely surrendered or trusted to God? Don’t deceive yourselves. Millions of people are victims of this lie. They are unable to understand that even in poverty there can be calm, wellbeing, happiness and above all peace. What we are dreaming of, the flights of fancy we indulge in will fade away at daybreak. Led by desires, like deer, we run after sadhus, mahatmas, holy scriptures and texts, wives and husbands. Like the deer, we cannot realize that wellbeing and infinite happiness are hidden inside us. We keep facing terrible privations because we don’t seek refuge in the mythical tree that satisfy every desire (Kalpataru): our soul. Peace, prosperity and wellbeing are hermetically hidden inside us but because of our outgoing nature we aren’t able to meet with them.

One day a traveller got tired and chose to rest under the shadow of a tree. He wanted food and water. They both materialized. He wanted to have a bed and bed materialized as well. He started to wonder if there was some spirit bringing him these things, and spirits also materialized and beat him up. What we conceive in the morning materializes later during the day. If we conceive evil, really we surrender to evil. If we conceive good things, good things end up happening. A pure and true intention is successful. One with such an intention can see his senses ruined, but he is happy. When we intend to do good things, there is some trouble but we shouldn’t to get annoyed for these ones. The intention we have in the morning and in the evening must be pure, true. If we don’t water this intention down, we can achieve a state in which even Gods would bow before us. When your soul become secure and firm, you will stop being annoyed by your mind and will talk to your soul. Then what you will think of will be for your own good, impossible will become possible. But a dark intention will turn your happiness into meanness. Keep your soul pure and live inside yourselves. Look for the truth in any situation. Don’t be slave to the mind, so you will be free from any slavery.