The mind cannot grasp the real

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: How to bring the mind back to the center, what to do when the mind is not at the center?

Acharya Prashant: It doesn’t matter what the mind is saying. The mind may say, “I am feeling blissful or I am feeling awful.” If the mind is saying something, it only proves that there is mental activity going on. Even if the mind is saying that it is experiencing absolute joy then rest assured that it is just disturbance. If the mind is saying that it is experiencing disturbance then of course it is disturbance. But even if the mind talks of other experiences, kindly do not give those experiences any credibility.

Real home, real core, real center, real peace is not something which the mind grasps or constructs or within the scope of mind’s detection.

Now our friend asks that how to bring the mind back to the center, what to do when the mind is not at the center? Do not believe in this conclusion, this is what you can do.

You are never away from the center. In fact the thought that you are at the center or away from the center is what is responsible for you to believing that you are away from the center.

Do not take these this thought seriously, reject it, discard it. Have tremendous faith, so much faith that you refuse to touch Godliness, your center, your core, your essence, your home with anything. You say that the mind is entitled to talk about all the worldly affairs and I listen to the mind. If the mind says that there is a shop on the left hand side, I will look at the left hand side. If the mind says that I must pay attention to the car that is coming from the other side I will listen to the mind. Whatever the mind says about the affairs of this world, I can listen to the mind but I will not listen to the mind if it tries to talk about the essentials of life.

If mind tries to talk about love I will say, “Shut up!, not your zone.” If the mind tries to talk about freedom I’ll say, “Get lost, beyond your province.” If the mind tries to talk about God I’ll say, “Go away, you have no locus standi in this.”

In peripheral things, in trivial matters you can go with the mind, you can read what it is saying but when it comes to real things in life, when it comes to the essential, when it comes to the absolute, when it comes to realization then kindly do not allow the mind to interfere.

Interfere not only in when mind says that God is not there, it is a bigger trap of the mind when it says that the God is there.

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