Being conscious, is what you are aware of, like thoughts that reach the surface, but that what lies below it, the unconscious is where all those experiences and connections are housed. Only if they see of themselves does it surface as thoughts, feelings, therefore keeping the mind still is not enough. It is not about keeping the mind still, but being mindless-ness. This state of mindless-ness is not separate from having a mind. While this might sound contradictory, from this state you can function, in fact be in perfect harmony, doing what is perfectly right at the right moments. This knowing will use the brains knowledge and the vocal cords  ability to say and do what is right because the real you is one with wisdom and love.

There has been a long misunderstanding about these two things: keeping the mind still and mindlessness. There have been many people who have thought that they are synonymous. They appear to be synonymous, but in reality they are as far apart as two things can be, like black and white, like good and evil and there is no way to bridge them.

The difference is very delicate. A man who is keeping his mind still and a man who has no mind will look exactly alike from the outside, because the man who is keeping his mind still is also silent. Underneath his silence there is great turmoil, but he is not allowing it to surface. He is in great control. The man with no mind, or mindlessness, has nothing to control. He is just pure silence with nothing repressed, with nothing disciplined, just a pure empty sky.

Surfaces can be very deceptive. One has to be very alert about appearances, because they both look the same from the outside, both are silent. The problem would not have arisen if the still mind was not easy to achieve. It is easy to achieve. Mindlessness is not so easy to achieve; it is not cheap, it is the greatest treasure in the world.

Mind can play the game of being silent; it can play the game of being without any thoughts, any emotions, but they are just repressed, just not letting it surface as thoughts and feelings, fully alive, ready to jump out any moment. The so-called guru’s have fallen into the fallacy of stilling the mind. If you go on sitting silently, trying to control your thoughts, not allowing your emotions, not allowing any movement within you, slowly it will become your habit. This is the greatest deception in the world you can give to yourself, because everything is exactly the same, nothing has changed, but it appears as if you have gone through a transformation.

The state of no-mind or mindlessness is just the opposite of stilling the mind. It is getting beyond the mind. It is creating such a distance between yourself and the mind that the mind becomes a grain of sand on a beach, and you are seeing the beach with all its grains of sand. When the mind is still, you are the controller. When the mind is not, you are the watcher. These are the distinguishing marks.

When you are controlling something you are in tension; you cannot be without tension, because that which is controlled is continuously trying to revolt against you, that which is enslaved wants freedom. Your mind sooner or later will explode with vengeance.

A story

There was a man of a very angry and aggressive type, so violent that he had killed his brother for something trivial. The whole family was afraid of him because he knew no argument except violence.
The day he killed his brother by beating him with a stick, a monk was passing by. A crowd had gathered, and the monk said, “This mind full of anger and violence will lead you to hell.” This monk was so peaceful that the man wanted to be like him and said, “I also want to be as peaceful as you are, but what can I do? I don’t know anything. When anger grips me I’m almost unconscious, and now I have killed my own brother.”
The monk said, “The only way to still this mind, which is full of anger and violence and rage, is to renounce the world.” truth is a religion of renunciation, and the ultimate renunciation is even of clothes. The monk lives naked, because he is not allowed to possess even clothes.
The man was of a very arrogant type, and this became a challenge to him. Before the crowd he threw his clothes in the rubbish bin . The whole family could not believe it, “Is he mad or something?” The man fell down at his feet and said, “You may have taken many decades to reach the stage of renunciation…. I renounce the world, I renounce everything. I am your disciple, initiate me.”
The monk told him,” from this moment you have to remember that peace has to become your very vibration.”
The man disciplined himself, stilled his mind, fasted long, tortured himself, and soon became more famous than his master. Angry people, arrogant people, egoistic people can do things which peaceful people will take a little time to do. He became very famous, and thousands of people used to come just to touch his feet.
After twenty years the man was in the capital. A monk from his village had come for some purpose, and he thought, “It will be good to go and see what transformation has happened to this man who killed his brother. So many stories are heard, that he has become a totally new man, that his old self is gone and a new fresh being has arisen in him, that he really has become peace, silence, tranquillity.”
So the monk went with great respect. But when he saw the man, seeing his face, his eyes, he could not think that there had been any change. There was none of the grace which necessarily radiates from a mind which has become silent. Those eyes were still as egoistic, in fact they had become more pointedly egoistic. The man’s presence was even more ugly than it used to be. Still, the monk went close. The man recognized the monk, who had been his neighbour, but now it was beneath his dignity to recognize him. The monk also saw that he had recognized him, but he was pretending that he did not. He thought, “That shows much.” He went close by and asked, “Can I ask you a question? What is your name?” Naturally, great anger arose in the man because he knew that this monk knew perfectly well what his name was. But still he kept himself in control, and he said, “My name is Cain.”
The monk said, “It is a beautiful name, but my memory is very short, can you repeat it again? I have forgotten… what name did you say?” This was too much. Cain used to carry a staff. He took the staff in his hand… he forgot everything. Twenty years of controlling the mind, and he said, “Ask again and I will show you who I am. Have you forgotten?  I killed my brother, I am the same man.”
Only then did he recognize what had happened… In a single moment of unconsciousness he realized that twenty years have gone down the drain; he has not changed at all. But millions of people feel great silence in him…. Yes, he had become very controlled, he keeps himself repressed, and it had paid off. So much respect and he had no qualification for that respect. So much honour, even kings came to touch his feet.

Your so-called guru’s and teachers are nothing but controlled animals. The mind is nothing but a long heritage of all your animal past. You can control it, but the controlled mind is not the awakened mind.

The process of controlling and repressing and disciplining is taught by all the religions, and because of their fallacious teaching, humanity has not moved a single inch — it remains barbarous. Any moment people start killing each other. It does not take a single moment to lose your selves; they forget completely that they are human beings, and something much more, something better is expected of them.

There have been very few people who have been able to avoid this deception of controlling mind and believing that they have attained mindlessness. To attain mindlessness, a totally different process is involved: I call it the turning of lead to gold alchemy. It consists only of a single element, that of watchfulness.

Gautama Buddha is passing through a town when a fly comes and sits on his forehead. He is talking to his companion, Ananda, and he just goes on talking and moves his hand to throw off the fly. Then suddenly he recognizes that his movement of the hand has been unconscious, mechanical. Because he was talking consciously to Ananda, the hand moved the fly mechanically. He stops and although now there was no fly, he moves his hand again consciously. Ananda says, “What are you doing? The fly has gone away…”. Gautam Buddha says, “The fly has gone away…. but I have committed a sin, because I did it in unconsciousness.”

The English word “sin” is used only by Gautama Buddha in its right meaning. The word “sin” originates in the roots which mean forgetfulness, unawareness, unwatchfulness, doing things mechanically, and our whole life is almost mechanical. We go on doing things from morning to evening, from evening to morning, like robots.

A man who wants to enter into the world of mindlessness has to learn only one thing, a single step and the journey is over. That single step is to do everything watchfully. You move your hand watchfully; you open your eyes watchfully; you walk, you take your steps alert, aware; you eat, you drink, but never allow mechanical-ness to take possession over you. This is the only alchemical secret of transformation .But realize that being watchful is not of mind, being conscious from beyond mind.

A man who can do everything fully consciously becomes a luminous phenomenon. He is all light, and his whole life is full of fragrance and flowers. The mechanical man lives in dark holes, dirty holes. He does not know the world of light; he is like a blind man. The man of watchfulness is really the man who has eyes.

He says it is useless to think who is right and who is wrong. There are thousands of doctrines, hundreds of philosophies, and if you go on searching for truth in those words, you will be lost in a jungle where you cannot find the path. All that you know is to attain to a solid basis within yourself.

It is not a question of controlling yourself separate from existence; it is a question of letting go and becoming vast, as vast as existence itself. And in watchfulness you become infinite: that is the only thing within you which has no limits. Just have a look at your watching, witnessing. It is unlimited. No beginning, no end…it is formless.

This absolute stillness of the mind is exactly no-mind or mindlessness. It is not control, it is not discipline; it is not that you are putting all your pressure on your mind and keeping it silent. No, it is simply not there. The house is empty. There is nobody to control and there is nobody to be controlled.

All concerns for control have disappeared into a simple watchfulness. This watchfulness is expansive.

Once you have tasted it a little, it goes on expanding to the very limits of the universe.

When old habits suddenly arise, don’t use your mind to repress them. Let go and it will disappear like a wave reaching the shore. He is reminding you that even when you are moving on the path of watchfulness, sometimes old habits may revive. But don’t be concerned, they will disappear of their own accord. You simply watch. Don’t get concerned, don’t get disturbed, don’t be worried.

Sometimes there will be anger, sometimes there will be a desire, sometimes there will be an ambition, but they cannot disturb your watchfulness. They will come and they will go without leaving a trace on your mirror-like purity. But you have only to remember one thing: not to start fighting with them, smashing them, destroying them, throwing them away. It comes very naturally to the mind that if something wrong is happening, jump on it and destroy it. This is the only thing you have to be aware of, because this is what never allows a man to get beyond the mind. Old habits will come, and old habits are very old, many, many lives old. Your awareness is very fresh and very new; your mechanicalness is ancient, so it is very natural that it will come back. But this is only after insights have arisen which have shown you the true nature of thoughts and feelings, therefore this path is for those who have made what was given to them through the articles their living truth.

Somebody insults you, you don’t have to be angry, but suddenly you find anger arising. It is not an effort, it is just an old habit, Mr Bucket an old reaction that recognizes of itself a reason for being. Don’t fight with it, don’t try to smile and hide it. Just watch it, and it will come and it will go…. Like a wave reaching the shore..

In the previous articles we talked about forgiveness being the weapon to fight evil, these were to lead you to recognition of you and him who lives in the dark corners of your house and loosen the stronghold he has, had on you.

From this point mind can be used as it was intended, as a tool, while there is no mental activity. I am talking to you, and I am using my mind because there is no other way. Mind is the only way to convey any messages in words; that is the only mechanism available. But my mind is absolutely silent, there is no mental activity: I’m not thinking what I’m going to say, and I’m not thinking what I have said. I’m simply responding to spirit spontaneously without bringing myself into it.

It is as if you go into the mountains and you shout and the mountains echo: the mountains are not doing any mental activity, they are simply echoing. When I am talking by spirit, I am just a mountain echoing.

Right when using mind, there’s no mental activity, no crooked talk defiled with names and forms, only straight talk without complications. Without mind but functioning…. This is a strange experience, when you can use mind without any mental activity…. Without mind but functioning, always functioning but non-existent.

So mindlessness and mind are not separate. Mindlessness is mind without any content, without any thought. It is just like a mirror not reflecting anything.

The silence of being a mirror not reflecting anything is the greatest bliss that existence allows man to have. And from there things go on expanding, mysteries upon mysteries… no questions, no answers, but tremendous experiences… nourishing, fulfilling, giving contentment to the hungry soul which has been wandering for lives upon lives.

It is time to stop this wandering.

To stop this wandering there is a simple method, and that is to start watching your mind, your body, your actions. Whatever you are doing or not doing, one thing you have to be alert of, that you are watching. Don’t lose the watcher, then it doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist.

The watcher is no one. It is just pure consciousness. And this pure consciousness can only bring a new humanity, a new world, where people will not discriminate against each other for stupid reasons. Nations, races, religions, doctrines, ideologies, those are just for children to play with, not for mature people. For mature people there is only one thing in existence, and that is watchfulness.

Those who have grown enough will naturally go to spread the message. While he himself is not enlightened yet; that’s why each time I tell him, “Remember, I have to say this because you are not enlightened yet… you are articulate, you speak well, you have enough experience to have recognized so you can spread the message. You may not be able to sow the seeds but you may be able to attract a few people to come to me. But use this opportunity also for your own growth.”

The monk asked, “What can I do, how can I use this opportunity?” And Buddha said, “There is only one thing that can be done in every opportunity, in every situation, and that is watchfulness.

You will sometimes find people irritated by you, angry because you have hurt their ideologies, their doctrines, their prejudices. Remain silent and watchful. You may have days when you cannot get food because the people are against you, they will not even give you water. Watch… watch your hunger, watch your thirst… but don’t get irritated, don’t get annoyed. What you will be teaching people is of less importance than your own watchfulness, show them the way to me.

If you come back to me watchful, I will be immensely joyful. How many people you approached does not matter; how many people you spoke to does not matter. What ultimately matters is whether you have come home, whether you yourself have found the solid basis of witnessing. Then all else is insignificant.”

This is the only meditation there is; in truth be it the Bible, Koran, the Veda’s, the Upanishads.

One final thing: in preparation of mindlessness the Bible states “the heart of the righteous one meditates so as to answer” Proverbs 15:28.

You might recall moments where you regretted what you said, it is particularly difficult when emotions arise, be it thoughts or feelings, through the insights of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and by remaining aware, you will be able to seek always for delightful words of truth and actions.

Those who have knowledge think before they speak.

Therefore always seek to understand the other rather than accuse or put them down, then finding these words of value will come more easily .

Often it is understood that the kingdom of god is in your heart, Jesus did say: look the kingdom of god is in your midst. Some translations say the kingdom of god is within you, when referred to in the Bible, the figurative heart means the inner person, the source of a person’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings, but the Bible also tells you: the heart is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate.  Jesus said, from inside, out of the heart of man, injurious reasoning issue forth. Now when it is said that you sold your soul to the devil, then know also that the soul is threefold . They were the laws to keep you looking in the right direction until the revelations of the truth, now you have to walk the truth.

Yahovah means: He causes to become!

 

09-01-2008

Moshiya van den Broek