The Wandering Mind : A Dialogue

[Anurag Jain]

The Wandering Mind : A Dialogue

Hi Anurag,

I'm enormously delighted to see that you have started off a new journey for helping people know their true selves. You are one of those people who has had tremendous influence on my self-inquiry journey. Thanks a lot for that.

Anurag : You are most welcome !

My mind is in future or past most of the time; it wanders there continuously.

Anurag : The mind is a movement of memory. Till one has not understood the mind completely and the movement of memory, the mind will wander. The traditional approach is concentrating the mind on an idea, ideal, image or object. But concentration of mind results in conflict because there is something "what is" and then on that you superimpose an ideal called "what should be".

We are not interested in understanding the mind because it demands a lot of energy. We are rather looking for some quick fixes or remedies to "feel good". When we say that our mind wanders, we are actually judging our mind according to an ideal. We have an ideal or an image of a silent mind. Against this ideal we compare and judge our present state of mind and call it wandering. When there is no such ideal then there is no judgement and no comparison. Then there is mere awareness of mind as it moves. This requires alertness and attention because the mind is moving every second. We pine for ideals because we are lazy and want stability; a kind of static order where there is no need for vitality and energy. Consequently we dull our minds through self discipline, escapes and ideals.

Have we ever inquired from where our ideals come about? Are they again not a result of memory? We have heard from religious gurus that our minds have to be calm and focused. We have been trained in schools that we must concentrate our minds in order to learn a subject. We have been subjected to such a conditioning because our society is built around conformity and obedience. We had to attend schools not out of choice but out of the desire of our parents to ensure us a livelihood. So we have actually never tried to understand the mind as it is, it's natural movement. We have been moulded, shaped and enticed to focus our minds on desired goals and objects through various means.

What would happen when we do not have any ideals? That would be the beginning of freedom to observe the movement of your mind as it is. But doing this would also mean stepping beyond the security of known ideals and behaviours. It would mean stepping out of the fabric of security created by society for one's physical, psychological and emotional sustenance. It would mean moving alone. We are very scared of being alone. We adopt ideals so that we can remain a part of the social fabric. The real reason for having ideals are fear of losing security and pleasure.

So if one has gone into all this and deeply understood the significance of not having any "should be" in our life then one will drop all forms of self discipline. Then there is just a passive awareness of "what is" from moment to moment, without condemnation or justification. Then all the deeper layers of the mind which were suppressed by the force of our ideals reveal themselves. When they reveal themselves, we are freed from them. Freedom is not at the end. In order to look, we have to be free from ideals. Freedom is at the beginning. Only a mind unburdened by all "should be's" is free to look. And in that freedom there is a release of energy that shall shatter all conditioning.

I think about helping others instead of pulling myself out of the suffering I'm in. Doesn't one create more trouble in the world by seemingly helping others while one oneself is in trouble?

Anurag : An intellectual understanding of an issue is not the same as understanding something totally : from your mind and heart. It is not an insight which creates an instantaneous action. Intellectualization is just analysis, a sort of logical understanding of cause and effect, a play of symbols. And one of the effects of intellectualization and analysis is paralysis. We are caught between "what is" and "what should be".

How does one come to know that one is going to create more problem in the world by helping others? Is this your own understanding or the understanding of another, whom you are trying to imitate?

All imitation of others is based on fear of "going wrong". One has to understand life for oneself. No one can help you out with this. Even though I am corresponding with you, I cannot help you ultimately. You can only help yourself by observing yourself in the mirror of relationships. In relating with me and all others you have to study your own reactions and thoughts and understand the significance of mind in relationships.

If one has a desire to help others one has to go into this desire and observe what happens. No amount of intellectualization is going to give you insight. When you try to help others and remain open to seeing all that comes about, you shall learn about this desire, which no book or no guru can teach you.

I spend most of my time reading spiritual books, watching video courses on spirituality and so on. Aren't these activities a way to escape facing ourselves?

Anurag : The spiritual mind is one of the most difficult mind to deal with. It knows a lot but eventually all it's knowing is sterile. The only knowing is knowing oneself from moment to moment. All knowledge which is accumulation of concepts, ideas, ideals and practices prevents oneself from seeing oneself as one is. Our lives are basically petty, empty, dull and repetitive. We are caught in the movement of pleasure, it's demand and hence repetitive cycle.

The spiritual mind is nothing but the same movement of pleasure continued in a different form. It is an escape from facing the actuality of our lives. While some are caught in the pleasures of technology, relationships and work, others are caught in the so called spirituality. Because of the respect endowed to it by society, one finds it more difficult to understand spirituality as a movement of pleasure.

All movement of the mind in the psychological realm is a means to escape emptiness or nothingness. We want to be and become something : if not in the material world then in the so called spiritual world. You may know this intellectually, which means having a knowledge about this but having an insight into this is a different matter. Insight leads to instantaneous action. To have insight, one has to go very deeply into oneself and one has to be totally alone.

If one is escaping and one is aware that one is escaping, without the compulsion to do anything about it then the very awareness has it's own action. The way our minds function, it can easily convert "not escaping" into an ideal. When one starts understanding the escape, as it is happening, by constant awareness of it from moment to moment, then there is an action which is not predetermined. The significance of our escaping, it's various subtleties, it's twists and turns and the compulsions start revealing themselves. One has to be without any motive to watch all this. The moment there is a motive or a direction in our mind, learning stops and we get into a pattern. One has to learn from moment to moment. For this there cannot be any accumulation. Every moment one has to meet life afresh. Having a motive prevents such innocence of mind.


Could I ask a personal question? How do you spend your time during the day? Our minds love to be busy all the time and hate us sitting somewhere calmly. How can one put a stop to such a restless mind?

Anurag : Why do we want to establish a pattern of living? Doesn't the building of this pattern come in the way of knowing ourselves as we are. Further, how do we establish any pattern of life? Is not such construction based on ideals gathered in our memory.

Why should one sit calmly? Isn't calmness an idea we have constructed as an opposite to what we call "restlesness". How doe we judge our minds as restless? Is it not in relation to the established ideal of "calmness"? What if we do not form any ideal of calmness? Will there then be something called a restless mind?

If one has an insight into the fundamental duality of "what is" and "what should be", then one shall end the whole movement of building ideals as opposites of what one is. When there is freedom from this duality, there is freedom to observe "what is". In that freedom there is no direction, no destination, no goal but a living in a silence. It does not mean that life shall not precipitate crisis. In fact it will, because we are all tethered to different forms of security. Only in crisis will all patterns of security reveal themselves and come to an end.

So silence is not what we conceive of it. It's a silence that comes with the understanding of every movement of thought. It's not a dead silence of practice of a system or self discipline or absorption in any samadhi or trance. It is a silence which is not caught in the acquisitive net of thought. It's not the silence of the known : not a silence which you invite.

I do not have any pattern to spending my day. I work when I feel like, do not work when I don't feel like. There is no effort or struggle to do anything, not do anything or reach anywhere. There are moments when I am just quietly watching my mind, moments when I am talking to people, moments where I am watching TV, moments when I am doing carpentry and moments when I am doing office related work. I also sometimes read J Krishnamurti, the only person whom I read sometimes, now.