THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 45
Question 1
BELOVED MASTER, I AM REJECTING MY MIND AND CLINGING TO AWARENESS.
Prem Shahido, mind has not to be rejected at all; if you reject it, it will remain. Rejection means repression.
Anything rejected never leaves you; it simply moves from the conscious to the unconscious, from the lighted part
of your being to the dark layers where you cannot face it. You become oblivious of it, but it is there, more alive
than ever. It is better to face the enemy than to keep the enemy at your back; that is far more dangerous.
And I have not told you to reject the mind. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, one of the miracles of existence.
We have not been able yet to make anything comparable to human mind. Even the most sophisticated computers
are nothing compared to it. A single human mind can contain all the libraries of the world; its capacities are
almost unbounded. But it is a machine, it is not you. To get identified with it is wrong, to make it your master is
wrong, to be guided by it is wrong. But to be the master and the guide is perfectly right. The mind as a servant
is of tremendous value, so don’t reject it. To reject it will impoverish you, it will not enrich you.
I am not against the mind; I am in favor of transcending it. And if you reject you cannot transcend. Use it as
a stepping-stone. It all depends on you: you can make it a hindrance if you start thinking that the mind has to
be rejected, denied, destroyed; or you can make it a stepping-stone if you accept it, if you try to understand it.
In the very effort of understanding it, transcendence happens. You go beyond it, you become a witness.
And, Shahido, a second thing....
You say, ”I am clinging to awareness.”
That is bound to happen. If you reject mind you will start clinging to awareness. And clinging is nothing but
mind functioning from the back door. Clinging is a process of mind. But that is bound to happen to people who
reject, repress.
The question is of transformation. The mind has to be used rightly; then there will be no clinging to awareness.
Otherwise, afraid of the mind, that it may come back, you will cling to awareness and in clinging it has already
come back, it is already there. Clinging is mind; nonclinging is intrinsic to awareness. You cannot cling to
awareness; if you cling, it is just a mind phenomenon. Your awareness too is just a pseudo thing created by the
mind because you were asking too much for it. It is false, utterly false; if you have to cling to it, it is false.
Real awareness remains with you; you need not cling to it. Who will cling to it? You are awareness. Who will
cling to whom? In awareness there are not two the clinger and the object of clinging; in awareness you are one.
There is only awareness and nothing else. One cannot cling to awareness. But it is bound to happen if you reject
the mind; the very first step has gone wrong. Don’t reject it understand it.
And in fact, the word ’understand’ is very significant. When you understand something it stands under you.
You become transcendental, you go beyond it; it is below you. It has its utility; great utility. There will be no
science without mind and there will be no technology without mind. All human comforts will disappear without
human mind. Man will fall back into the world of the animals or even far below without the mind. Mind has
given much.
The problem is not the mind; the problem is your identification with it. You think you are it, that is the
problem. Disidentify. Watch the mind, and you be the watcher and let the mind be there watched, witnessed,
observed. And a great radical change happens through observation. Mind functions far more efficiently when you
observe it because all that is rubbish drops and mind need not carry unnecessary weight; it becomes light. And
when you become a watcher, mind can have some rest too. Otherwise your whole life mind is working, working,
day in, day out, year in, year out; it stops only when you die. It creates a deep fatigue, mental fatigue.
Now scientists say even metals become tired metal fatigue. So what to say about the mind which is very subtle,
which is very delicate? Handle it carefully. But you remain aloof, unconcerned, uninvolved. When you are writing
you don’t become the fountain pen, although you cannot write without it. A good fountain pen is very essential
for good writing. If you start writing with your fingers nobody will be able to read what you have written, not
even you, and it will be very primitive. But you are not the fountain pen, and the fountain pen is not the writer
but only a writing instrument.
The mind is not the master but only an instrument in the hands of the master.
Shahido, be more alert, aware, but don’t cling to it. Clinging will destroy the whole beauty of it. Why cling?
What is the fear? We cling only out of fear. You are awareness, you cannot lose it. Even now, when you are
unaware of the fact that you are awareness, you have not lost it.
Truth cannot be lost. Whether you know it or you know not, it makes no difference. The truth remains the
truth, known or unknown. Your innermost being is still pure awareness. You live on the circumference, hence you
are not able to see your own center.