Monkey or Monk
When your mind is full of anxiety,
Fear, worry, and other junk…
It's time to tame your Monkey Mind,
And make it into a Monk.
All of us are blessed with a mind. The mind produces thoughts. It is our thought factory. Without the mind, it seems that we cannot live. It is the software of the body and through the organ of the brain and the nervous system, it transmits thoughts to and from every part of the body.
The mind is not a physical organ. It appears to exist. That is why we tell people, 'My mind is wandering.' We experience it and we feel it. But if we go in search of the mind, where it is, we cannot find.
Most of us know this much about the mind. What we probably don't know is that the mind is different from the memory and intellect. We consider the memory to be part of the mind, just as we think the intellect to be the mind. In reality, along with the ego, the intellect, memory and the mind form our subtle body or Antahkarna. Because we do not differentiate between the mind and the intellect, we become prisoners of our own mind and we don’t realize this.
The mind wanders here and there. It behaves like a monkey that is constantly jumping from thought to thought. The mind doesn't know how to sit still. It can produce a thought practically every second. This can become a whopping 50,000 thoughts per day! All thoughts are not bad thoughts. The mind offers a bouquet and it is for the intellect to separate the roses and the thorns. The intellect discriminates and then activates our power of choice. Some thoughts become feelings and then lead to action, while others wither away in the mind. Therefore, the intellect plays a very important role in what each human being does. A well-developed intellect can become the master of the monkey mind. Otherwise, we just live and die like monkeys.
The mind doesn't stop even when we go to sleep. It continues to produce thoughts as we dream. These can be fantasies or nightmares. Every time we wake up, there are chances that we experience a lingering dream that the mind cooks up. We might sheepishly shrug away the dream or sometimes be impacted by certain distinct thoughts of the dreaming mind. The time when we do not dream seems to be the time that we experience bliss and peace. Haven't you heard people say, 'I slept like a log.' A sound sleep always gives us bliss and peace.
How does one live controlling the mind? How can we cut the tail of the monkey and stop it from this constant jumping and wandering as it swings from the past to the future? We want to enjoy 'the moment', but the mind steals 'the present' and we lose our biggest treasure – 'the now'. Most of us seem to be like little puppets as we sway and dance along with the mind. Is there a way to change this?
Those who understand life and read the manual carefully, realize they are not the body or the mind. They are in fact, the Soul—Divine consciousness. Unfortunately, we don't experience this Divinity because of our own wandering mind. It dominates our life and makes us believe that it is king – it is everything! If we work towards taking charge of our mind, then, we will become the master and the mind, our slave.
We have to make the monkey mind into a monk. We have to stop the ever-jumping mind, going from thought to thought, by contemplating and focusing on one thought at a time. This is a tough challenge, and a very few are able to master it. The moment they try to silence the mind through different methods of meditation or simply sitting quietly, they watch the mind jump to another thought.
If we really want to live our life with peace and bliss, we have no other option, but to make the monkey mind into a monk. We have to reduce our MTR, the Mental Thought Rate. Every time the mind jumps to an unwanted thought, we need to go and gently bring it back. We need to become conscious of our mind. We have to observe the monkey mind as it jumps from thought to thought.
As we become conscious of our mind and we watch it as it goes here and there, the monkey mind quietens. The moment we use our intellect to discriminate, it slows down the mind. The mind will not stop its monkey business, until we discipline it, silence it and eventually, make it into a monk. We have a choice – either we can live a life with peace, or we can permit our mind to tear our life into pieces. Most of us live scattered lives, with thoughts going in all directions. We pride ourselves on multi- tasking, when in reality, we are handing over our life to the monkey mind. If we really want to live our life with joy and bliss, then we need peace, the very foundation of happiness.
Peace depends upon whether we have made our mind a monkey or a monk. Have we trained our mind to be constantly swinging to a past that doesn’t exist and a future that’s imagined or have we disciplined the mind to be in the present moment, living life moment by moment, peacefully and blissfully, in the ‘now’?
IN A NUTSHELL