VBT – Meditation 17.2

VBT – Meditation 17.2

From Anger To Repentance

Mind is just like a pendulum and every day, if you observe, you will come to know this. You decide one thing on one extreme, and then you move to another. You are angry; then you repent. You decide, “No, this is enough. Now I will never be angry.” But you do not see the extreme.

“Never” is an extreme. How are you so certain that you will never be angry? What are you saying?

Think once more – never? Then go to the past and remember how many times you have decided that “I will never be angry.” When you say, “I will never be angry,” you do not know that by being angry you have accumulated momentum to go to the other extreme.

Now you are feeling repentant, you are feeling bad. Your self-image is disturbed, shaken. Now you cannot say you are a good man, you cannot say that you are a religious man. You have been angry, and how can a religious man be angry? How can a good man be angry? So you repent to regain your goodness again. At least in your own eyes you can feel at ease – that you have repented and you have decided that now there will be no more anger. The shaken image has come back to the old status quo. Now you feel at ease, you have moved to another extreme.

But the mind that says, “Now I will never be angry,” will again be angry. And when you are again angry, you will forget completely your repentance, your decision – everything. After anger, again the decision will come and the repentance will come, and you will never feel the deception of it. This has been so always.

Mind moves from anger to repentance, from repentance to anger. Remain in the middle. Do not be angry and do not repent. If you have been angry, then please, at least do this: do not repent. Do not move to the other extreme. Remain in the middle. Say, “I have been angry and I am a bad man, a violent man. I have been angry. This is how I am.” But do not repent; do not move to the other extreme. Remain in the middle. If you can remain, you will not gather the momentum, the energy to be angry again.

So this sutra says, UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE – UNTIL. And what is meant by UNTIL? Until you explode! Keep in the middle until the mind dies. Keep in the middle until there is no mind. So, UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE – UNTIL there is no mind. If mind is at the extremes, then the middle will be no-mind.

But this is the most difficult thing in the world to do. It looks easy, it looks simple; it may appear as if you can do this. And you will feel good if you think that there is no need for any repentance. Try this, and then you will know that when you have been angry the mind will insist on repenting.

You have lived with the mind for centuries, for many, many lives, yet you are not introduced to it. You don’t know its workings, you don’t know its strategies. The repentance afterwards is also part of your mind; the sadness afterwards is also part of your mind. So you are moving in a vicious circle: first you miss the opportunity, then you abuse the mind, call the mind names: it is a “monster,” the thoughts are “silly,” then you become sad. And this whole game is of the mind.