Free Of Mind – In Gita Verse 6.35 Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: O mighty-armed son of Kuntī, it is undoubtedly very difficult to curb the restless mind, but it is possible by suitable practice and by detachment.
When Krishna says detachment means – True detachment isn’t a separation from life but the absolute freedom within your mind to explore living. Living with the right awareness.
Right awareness means not only awareness – because awareness can become a strain – right awareness means awareness without any strain, relaxed. One can try to be aware but can create tension on the way, and that tension will destroy the whole work. So these two things have to be remembered: awareness with no strain, with no tension.
Awareness is a flowering of relaxation. Wherever you feel any tension in the body, relax that part. If your whole body is relaxed, your awareness will grow faster. Just watch, just see, make no effort, do not strive; an effortless awareness. In the beginning it looks very paradoxical – effortlessness and awareness – but once you start working on it, slowly slowly the knack is learned. It is a knack. And once you have learned the knack, once you have known even a single moment of awareness without tension, you are on the right track; you will never be the same person again.
Just relax and let things be as they are. A very very passive awareness – that is the meaning of meditation. If sometimes you forget watching; perfectly good! When you remember, you watch again. When you forget, you forget. This is relaxation, this is accepting life as it comes. Then great joy arises out of it. You are never tired and you are never distracted because nothing can distract you.
In that passive awareness you’re experiencing true detachment or indifference:
With that big question, how do we Know?
It is not difficult to know. How do you know when you have a headache and how do you know when you don’t have a headache? It is simply clear. When you are growing in detachment, you will become healthier, happier; your life will become a life of joy. That is the criterion of all that is good. Joy is the criterion. If you are growing in joy, you are growing, and you are getting towards home… If you are moving into detachment, love will grow, joy will grow, only attachments will drop – because attachments bring misery, because attachments bring bondage, because attachments destroy your freedom. But if you are becoming indifferent…. Indifference is a pseudo-coin, it looks like detachment, but it only LOOKS like detachment. Nothing will be growing in it. You will simply shrink and die…
Beware. Whenever something goes wrong there are indications in your being. Sadness is an indicator, depression is an indicator; joy, celebration is also an indicator. More songs will happen to you if you are moving towards detachment. You will be dancing more and you will become more loving. Remember, love is not attachment, love knows no attachment, and that which knows attachment is not love. That is possessiveness, domination, clinging, fear, greed – it may be a thousand and one things, but it is not love. In the name of love other things are parading, in the name of love other things are hiding behind, but on the container the label ‘love’ is stuck. Inside you will find many sorts of things but not love at all.
One more thing we all have to understand – If detachment is seen as being the opposite of attachment, then it is wrong. But if detachment is freedom from attachment, then it is right. This is a very delicate difference. If detachment is the opposite of attachment then there is something wrong somewhere, because that which is the opposite of attachment is definitely connected with attachment. All opposites are interconnected. If you love anyone, you go on remembering him. If you hate anyone, even then you go on remembering him. Hate and love are opposites, but they are connected. A friend you can perhaps forget, but you cannot forget your enemy; he goes on pricking you like a thorn. You are related with the friend; similarly you are related with the enemy too.
Don’t ever think that an enemy is one with whom all kinds of relationships have been broken. No, if all relationships were altogether broken, then he would not be the enemy. You don’t have a friendly relationship with the enemy, but you do have a relationship of enmity with him: the relationship is not broken. If the relationship is really broken, then the friend is not a friend and the enemy is not an enemy. If the relationship changes, then a friend becomes an enemy and an enemy becomes a friend.
How long does it take for a friend to become an enemy? It can happen in a moment. How long does it take to make an enemy a friend? Why doesn’t it take long? – Because both are relationships. It is just a question of changing the direction a little. You were going to the east; you turned to the west. You were going to the west; you turned toward the east. Both are movements, just the direction has changed a little.
Krishna tells us that with right awareness we can have freedom from detachments once we have freedom then it is possible by suitable practice to be free of mind.
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