Mystic Mantra: Consciousness over matter

Meditation succeeds where psychology fails. Recently, some psychologists in the United States did some research about the mind and its functioning. The conclusion they reached was really mind-blowing.

“We’ve spent years trying to discern how the mind functions, but today I am forced to admit that this so-called research was nothing more than a fool’s errand and that we people of learning were the greatest fools of all,” said American Psychological Association president Nadine Kaslow at a press conference.

It is a great revelation for those who have this illusion that the mind can know everything. The mind can certainly know much. It can store a whole library of books in its memory bank. But what it cannot do is know itself. Today scientists are gradually realising this. One scientist has articulated his realisation in the following words: “Can the eye watch itself? Can a book read its own pages? No. It’s now clear to us that despite all the painstakingly conducted studies and all the data we have meticulously gathered since the late 19th century, we have, in essence, been nothing more than the snake that devours its own tail.”

“All that we thought we understood was merely a mirage crafted by the very unfathomable minds we once so stubbornly insisted we could know,” admitted Ms Kaslow, before declaring the APA, with its 134,000 members and 54 academic divisions, forever disbanded.

This realisation may appear to be a failure, but to me it is a blessing in disguise. Now, scientists can change the way they look at things and explore what is beyond mind — the mysterious realm of consciousness. We are born with consciousness. This consciousness runs through all beings and it blossoms absolutely when someone becomes a Buddha.

Along side this realisation, we develop our mind with the information that comes to us from society, education, etc. Mind is that part which has been given to us. The mind is borrowed, cultivated and that which society drills into us. It is not what we really are.

Osho points out: “Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education. In his book New Alchemy To Turn You On, Osho adds: “Mind means the conditioning. You can have a Hindu mind, but you cannot have a Hindu consciousness…

Consciousness is one; it is not divisible. Minds are many because societies are many; cultures, religions are many… Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness. Remember well that you don’t have one mind; you have multi-minds… you are poly-psychic. Mind is a flux: river like, flowing, changing. Consciousness is eternal, one.”
But we are identified with the mind. We go on saying, insisting, “My mind. I think this way. This is my ideology.” Because of this identification with the mind, you miss that which you really are.