MIND AND SERENITY - SWAMI TATWANANDA

[Guest guest]

"Having restrained the senses, he should sit intent on Me (Self/Atma); his

wisdom is steady whose senses are under control." (Chap.2-Verse-61-B.G.)

 

 

As a seeker you have to go beyond the earlier understanding that life is

conditioned by the upadhi (body-mind) to gain the vision of Truth. Therefore,

you have to shift your stand from depending upon life based on these

instruments (upadhi) to that Truth, which never suffers even when the upadhi

do ("avinasi tu tad viddhi"- Ch.2-17-B.G.)

 

What is the newness or change that is brought into life when this Truth is

understood? The physical body does not undergo any change because one has

come to know something in life. It continues to be what it is. The mind does

not change in its natural composition while accommodating

ideas/understanding, etc. Functionally too there is no change in terms of

knowing, forgetting, remembering, deliberating, etc.

 

Before you knew what is Atma, you had understood what is not Atma - the

anatma/not atma- and even after knowing what is Atma/Truth, you continue to

know what is not Atma. But there is a functional change in your mind, which

is the freedom from the stranglehold of likes/dislikes. There is a cessation

of the urge to seek ends. This freedom is called liberation. What wisdom

causes in the mind, is the absence of dislike for anything in this creation.

In its place, a reverence for life is implanted. That is the mind of a

Siddha/Accomplished one - a culmination of all disciplines.

 

Wisdom is an answer to the fundamental quest of life and the answer does not

centre on a particular, special experience. Every experience brings the same

message for the man of Wisdom - just as morning-noon-evening - is all Sun and

Sunlight and yet at once the Sun is free of morning -noon-evening. When a

mind owns the Truth and expresses it, it does so in terms of the noblest

values that all the scriptures praise and profess.

 

(Excerpted from Swamiji's talks - published in Mind and Serenity-1984)