VBT – Meditation 92.1
Mindstuff
This sutra says that the basic thing is to come back to the heart center – but how to come to it? PUT MIND STUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS ABOVE, BELOW AND IN YOUR HEART.
The word ‘mindstuff’ is not a good translation of the original Sanskrit word CHITT. But English has no other equivalent. So it is good in a way, it carries the meaning, not of ‘mind’ but of ‘mind-stuff’.
Mind means mentation, thinking, thought, and mindstuff means the background upon which these thoughts float – just as in the sky the clouds move. Clouds are the thoughts and the sky is the background upon which they move. That sky, consciousness, has been called mindstuff. Your mind can be without thoughts; then it is chitt, then it is pure mind. When it has thoughts it is an impure mind.
If your mind can be without thought, then it is very subtle, the subtlest thing possible in existence.
You cannot conceive of a more subtle possibility. Consciousness is the most subtle thing. So when there are no thoughts in the mind, you have a pure mind. The pure mind can move towards the heart, the impure mind cannot. By impurity I don’t mean any immoral thoughts in the mind, by impurity I mean all thoughts – thought as such is impure.
Even if you are thinking of God it is an impurity, because the cloud is moving. The cloud is very white, but the cloud is there and the purity of the space is not there. A cloudless sky is not there. A cloud may be a black cloud, a sexual thought moving in the mind, or the cloud may be a white cloud, beautiful, a prayer moving in the mind, but in both cases the pure mind is not there. It is impure, clouded. And if the mind is clouded you cannot move in the heart.
This has to be understood because with thoughts you cling to the head. Thoughts are the roots, and unless those roots are cut you cannot fall back to the heart.
The child remains in the heart only up to the moment that thoughts crystalize, that thoughts start floating in his mind. Then they take root; then through education, culture, cultivation, they become rooted; then by and by the consciousness moves from the heart to the head. The consciousness can remain in the head only if there are thoughts. This is basic. If there are no thoughts, consciousness immediately drops back to its original innocence in the heart.
Hence so much emphasis on meditation, so much emphasis on non-thinking, on thoughtless awareness, on choiceless awareness, or on Buddha’s ‘right mindfulness’, which is just mindfulness without any thought, just being aware. What happens then? A very great phenomenon happens because when the roots are cut, immediately consciousness drops back to the heart, to the original place where it had been. You become a child again.
Jesus said, “Only those who are like children will enter into the kingdom of my God.” He refers to those persons whose consciousness has come back to the heart. They have become innocent, childlike.
Tags: Mindstuff
