VBT – Week’s Meditation 21
Universal Mind
Mind has only a painted exterior; the interior remains untouched, unevolved. A kind of theism – people believe in God, people believe in hell and heaven, and people believe in punishment and reward – but people believe, people don’t know. Yes is there, but it has been forced. It has not been given a chance to evolve and unfold within you. There is a communal solidarity because you are never alone, you are always together with people, and the crowd is all around you and it feels good. The moment you are alone, trembling arises. When the great crowd is all around you, you can trust. So many people can’t be wrong, so you must be right, because so many people are going in the same way, in the same direction, and you are also going with them.
The third mind I call the ‘individual mind’; Nietzsche calls it ‘the lion’. It is independence, it is assertion, it is rebellion. The ego has evolved. The ego has become very, very, crystallised. The man is no more just a part of a church, country, tribe, clan, family; he is himself. The real culture can only start when you have become an individual. The sense of the self is a must, and this is the third stage of the mind.
The identity is no more of belonging, the identity is no more that you are a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a Christian. The identity is more personal – that you are a painter, that you are a poet. The identity is more creative; it is not of belonging but of contribution – what you have contributed to the world.
In the nebulous mind a centre arises by and by. In the child’s mind there was no centre. In the collective mind there was a false centre imposed from the outside. In the individual mind an inner centre arises. The first was a kind of chaos – no order. The second was a kind of patriarchy – an imposed order by the father, by the demanding society and the father-figures. The third is a kind of fraternity: a brotherhood arises. You don’t belong to any crowd; nobody can impose anything upon you, nor do you want to impose anything on anybody. You respect others’ freedom as much as you respect your own freedom. All are brothers.
This is a very critical stage – the third; it is just in the middle. Two minds are below it and two minds are above it. It is exactly the mid-link. If you fall, you go into the abyss of madness; if you rise, you go into the beatitude of being a Christ or a Buddha.
The fourth mind is the ‘universal mind’. Remember, it looks collective but it is not collective. ‘Collective’ means belonging to a society, a certain time, a certain period, a certain country. ‘Universal’ means belonging to the whole existence, to existence as such. The ego, when ripe, can be dropped; in fact, drops itself if the fourth door is available. And that is the function of religion: to make the fourth door available. That is the problem in the West now: the third mind has developed to its uttermost, and the fourth door is not available.
One has to go beyond it, and the fourth state, the universal mind, has to be created. The separation with the cosmos has to disappear. You have to become one with the whole. In fact you Are One, you just think that you are not. That barrier of the thought has to be dissolved. Then there is relaxation, peace, non-violence. In India we say: Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam: Then there is truth, there is good, and there is beauty. With the universal mind these three things flower: Satyam – truth, Shivam – good, Sunderam – beauty. With the universal mind these three flowers come into bloom, and there is great joy. You have disappeared, and all the energy that was involved in the ego is freed. That energy becomes beauty, good, truth.
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