Liberation is Destruction of Mind

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This is a excerpt from a satsang with Nome and Russ at The Society of

Abidance in Truth (SAT)

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A questioner relates passage from The Song of Ribhu about the

destruction of mind – "unfailing practice of the certitude of being

One with Brahman. What does he mean by the irreversible destruction

of the mind? Certainly he doesn't mean incapacity to think?"

 

No! Transcendence of thought does not mean incapacity of thought.

Incapacity of thought could be had in any stupor. We do not

recommend stupor as a form of meditation. Again, the lack of capacity

to think occurs in deep dreamless sleep. There your own nature is

shining, very peaceful, but there is no Self-Realization due to that

experience, no matter how many times one experiences deep sleep. The

ignorance, cause of ignorance, is still present but just not in a

manifest way. So, it is not recommended, necessarily, that you have

the incapacity to think, but he does recommend destruction of mind.

 

If mind is the outward going tendency, turning inward in the

destruction of mind. If the mind be the outward going tendency, then

be inward facing. Turning inward is the destruction of outward mind.

Maybe it is the meditation of where happiness is or the necessity of

knowing one' true Self in life. That, in itself, destroys the outward

tendency of mind.

 

If mind is the thinking capacity, or thinking motion, or collection

of thoughts then knowing oneself as the Witness of all thought, is

the destruction of mind. Put another way, if mind be considered the

ongoing, [not necessarily continuous, stream of thought,] of all

different kinds of thoughts, memories, daydreams, rational thoughts,

irrational thoughts, emotional thoughts, however they be classified -

knowing oneself to be the unmoving Witness of thought, [by virtue of

having inquired and ascertaining that one is the unmoving Witness of

thought, that not a single thought defines you or applies to you,

none of these thoughts are the actual reality,] that is the

destruction of mind.

 

If mind is that which undergoes various states such as waking,

dreaming, sleep, inclusive of life and death and everything that

occurs within those three states – I know I am getting a little bit

cosmic at this point, but that is just the nature of Truth – if that

be the mind – then that which is within the three states, conceives

of all worlds, all beings, all experiences, potential and actual --

if that be the mind, than the certitude that one's real nature is

Brahman, of the nature of infinite Consciousness, which has no state,

but is always in its own singular state, is the destruction of the

mind.

 

Put another way, if becoming inward turned further, we see mind as

all the states, waking, dream, sleep and everything contained within

those, every possibility, that all that is the mind, recognizing that

you are the silent, invariable, vast Consciousness, which is always

in its own state – the old texts call it the fourth – that that is

your nature, that recognition, that certitude, that is destruction of

mind. Again a third time, if you conceive of the mind as waking,

dreaming and sleep, those states, inclusive of everything possible

contained in those states – world, beings, life, death, etc.,

whatever, everything ever experienced in those states – if that be

the mind – then destruction of the mind is the recognition, the inner

revelation that your nature is the vast, limitless Consciousness, the

silent One that sees the rise and disappearance of all those states,

but is always in its own state.

 

Finally, the realization of no creation, that there has never been a

single thing, that only one Self alone exist eternally, that is the

certitude of Brahman of which Ribhu was speaking, and in That there

is no possibility of a mind. That is the destruction of mind. Put

another way, the realization that that infinite Consciousness is

really Brahman, one without a second, No wave has arisen, no second

thing has happened. There is no "I," ego, and such. This is the

destruction of mind to which Ribhu refers, and is the certitude that

Brahman alone exists. That is the Self

 

Whatever is the most experiential for the aspirant at the moment is

the safest because each one will necessarily and naturally lead to

the one deeper. These are just different ways of viewing mind. The

minds real nature is really nothing at all or just Brahman, but it

may be viewed in a variety of ways. Best to stay in Brahman for your

practice. If there is some deviation from It, then is where Self-

inquiry applies.