How to Stop the Mad Mind

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

– Richard Bach

How to Stop the Mad Mind

Junaid was going through the market-place of the town with his disciples. And it was his way to take any situation and use it. A man was dragging his cow by a rope, and Junaid said ’Wait’ to the man, and told his disciples ’Surround this man and the cow. I am going to teach you something.’

The man stopped – Junaid was a famous mystic – and he was also interested in what he was going to teach these disciples and how he was going to use him and the cow. And Junaid asked his disciples ’I ask you one thing: who is bound to whom? Is the cow bound to this man or is this man bound to this cow?’ Of course, the disciples said ’The cow is bound to the man. The man is the master, he is holding the rope, the cow has to follow him wherever he goes. He is the master and the cow is the slave.’

And Junaid said ’Now, see.’ He took out his scissors and cut the rope – and the cow escaped.

The man ran after the cow, and Junaid said ’Now look what is happening! Now you see who is the master; the cow is not interested at all in this man – in fact, she is escaping.’ And the man was very angry, he said ’What kind of experiment is this ?’ But Junaid said to his disciples ’And this is the case with your mind.

All the nonsense that you are carrying inside is not interested in you. You are interested in it, you are keeping it together somehow – you are becoming mad in keeping it together somehow. But you are interested in it. The moment you lose interest, the moment you understand the futility of it, it will start disappearing; like the cow it will escape.’

People come to me and ask ’How to stop this mad mind?’ I say ’There is no need to stop, all that is needed is that you become disinterested in it and the rope is cut.’ That is the meaning of sannyas: become disinterested in the mind. That is the meaning of real vairagya, detachment.

It has nothing to do with renouncing the world, but it certainly has something to do with cutting the rope to the mind. Just become disinterested in the rubbish and slowly slowly you will see a gap arising. The cloud that used to surround you always is getting farther and farther away and, one day, suddenly it is no more there.

And when you are left without mind, that is the state of spiritual perception, that is the state of darshan, that is the state when you can see, you have eyes; otherwise your eyes are so full of smoke you cannot see.

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.

– Christian Lous Lange