CHAPTER 3
CAN WE FIND
THE MIND?
THE MIND IS A MONKEY
In quest of Peace, man then proceeds to find his Mind. But the Mind is a Monkey. It is constantly jumping. Despite man's best efforts, he is unable to find the Mind.
Thadani was a big businessman. He had all the money in the world. But he had no Peace of Mind. He constantly worried and lived with great anxiety. His stress led him to his spiritual Master one day so that he could find a solution to the problem. 'My Mind is so worried. It is full of turmoil and anxiety,' he told the wise man. The Guru told Thadani, 'I shall remove all your stress and anxiety. Come at 5 am tomorrow morning, but don't forget to bring your Mind.'
Thadani thanked the Master and left. But as he did, he thought about the strange request his mentor had made. How could he forget his Mind even if he wanted to? His Mind was always with him, and it was so full of misery. He went home and told his dear wife about the strange man. The wife trusted the Spiritual Master and encouraged Thadani not to miss the meeting at dawn.
The next morning, when the rich man reached his Master's house, the Master greeted him and said, 'Hope you have brought your Mind.' Thadani could not control himself, and so he blurted, 'Of course, I have. How could I leave my Mind behind?' The Master smiled and replied, 'That's good, because if you did not bring your Mind, then how could I remove the stress, the worry, and the anxiety? Please sit in the room inside and find the mind. Once I finish my meditation, I will come and solve your problem.'
Thadani bowed and folded his hands as he left the Guru's chamber. He then recalled the words, 'Find the Mind!' and he started looking for his Mind. He searched a lot, and as he searched, he found that thoughts were coming from all over - his eyes, his nose, his ears, even his tongue, and skin. Each of his senses was triggering thoughts. His Mind, suddenly, jumped to the thought of the man who had cheated him the previous day. Only last month, he had helped to pay for his daughter's wedding. Then the Mind jumped to the police warrant that he had to attend to tomorrow. While his Mind was swinging like a Monkey between the troubles of yesterday and the problems of tomorrow, he did not know what to do. How could he find his Mind to present it to the Master? He was trying hard, when the Master entered and asked him, 'Let's remove all the anxiety from your Mind. Did you find it?' Thadani humbly replied, 'I tried very hard to find the Mind. Where it is, I could not find!' The Master smiled, 'But you said that the Mind is full of worry and stress. If the Mind doesn't exist, then where is the worry and anxiety?'
The Mind is a naughty rascal. It is a Monkey that jumps from thought to thought. In reality, it doesn't exist. It is a bundle of thoughts that becomes our Mind and makes us a Monkey that loses its Peace.
The Master told Thadani, 'If you want to take out the turmoil and worry from your Mind, stop this constant thinking, just as you would stop eating or walking or talking. It's a choice and you must make it a habit to stop thinking all the time. If you let negative thoughts of fear, worry, problems, and anxiety fill your life, then you will feel stressed and anxious. Eliminate such thoughts and you shall find Peace.'
We human beings have a brain, but even till today, scientists have not been able to define a clear relationship between the brain and the Mind. The brain is the physical aspect, our hardware. But the Mind is a subtle aspect, our software. It seems that we are programmed with this software, just as we are given the gift of the hardware of the human body. We can call the software – MIME. Although most of us don't know it, the MIME is the Mind, Intellect, Memory, and Ego. We all experience these subtle aspects of our existence, but unlike our eyes, nose, ears, hands, and feet, which we can touch and feel, we can't catch the Mind. We can see an X-ray or an MRI of the heart, kidney, lungs, and brain, but we cannot see the Mind, Intellect, Memory, and Ego. While we are sure that the Mind seems to exist, this subtle existence is mysteriously wired into the hardware of our body.
The Mind is a thought factory. While it has no physical existence, the subtle software constantly produces thoughts in a human being. It is capable of producing a thought practically every second. This can become over 50,000 thoughts per day. The Mind doesn't stop thinking even as we sleep. It thinks in our dreams. It is this constant jumping from thought to thought that creates the Monkey Mind that is so elusive. Even as we try to catch it, it jumps to another thought.
We often confuse the Mind to be the MIME, but the Intellect and Memory are different from the Mind. The Mind thinks, but the Intellect discriminates, just as the Memory records information that can be recalled later. The Ego is the fourth aspect of our subtle existence. Because of the Ego that keeps on screaming, 'I,' 'me' and 'mine,' the Mind aggressively thinks thoughts. Together, the Mind and Ego, become the ME that we seem to be. The ME makes us a Monkey that is constantly jumping.
The Monkey swings to a yesterday that is gone, and then to a tomorrow not yet born. The Monkey, ME, doesn't sit quietly for a moment. It is this Monkey Mind that is the thief of our Peace. By himself, man can be a peaceful being. But when man is in the hands of a Monkey that thinks 50,000 thoughts a day, man gets so stressed and worried that the intelligent being behaves like a donkey because of the Monkey Mind. We foolishly worry and live stressful lives because we do not use our intellect to discriminate thoughts. Although we are gifted with the Power of Intelligence, our thoughts distract us as they overtake us into an ocean of anxiety.
There is a way to live with Peace. But we must make this a part of our conscious effort to consciously eliminate negative thoughts, just as we try to still our Mind. Like a Monkey that is not satisfied with just a banana, the Mind is constantly craving and seeking. It is this desire that makes us jump from thought to thought, creating turmoil. Unless we quieten the Mind and make the Monkey into a Monk, we will continue to jump with stress and anxiety. We have to learn to reduce our MTR - our Mental Thought Rate. If we make it a habit to spend time in silence, as we use our intellect to control the Mind, we can stop this Monkey business of constantly jumping and creating anxiety. The intellect must develop willpower that controls the Mind from producing thoughts every moment, and stop us from being like an ape who wants to escape sitting quietly even for a moment. We want this and that. We worry about every possible thing in the world - our health, our wealth, our home, our car, our business, and even our dog. We are not able to sit peacefully, even for a moment because we have let our Mind become an uncontrolled Monkey, and thus it makes us suffer from anxiety.
One would think that wealthy people of this world have a lot of stress because they have so much money, property, stocks, and valuable resources to control and manage. There is no doubt that the rich and famous live stressful lives. Keeping their brand alive, their reputation and their image create thoughts of anxiety. But even the poor are not exempt from stress. They worry that they have no money. How will they feed their family, pay their house rent, educate their children, and buy them clothes? It doesn't stop there. They worry what would happen if they became sick because of a pandemic, how would they cope? At this point, they don't need to worry, because neither are they sick nor do they have unpaid bills. But they have a load of anxiety created by their own Mind. Not only has the Monkey Mind created so much stress, but it continues to worry, moment after moment. Both the rich man and the poor man are stressed because they don't realize that this is a choice.
