#19. Mind Quarantine & The Way Out | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyansa.

We're meditating on 112 meditation techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

Mind is a self-created prison not by its nature.

Mind by its nature is not a prison,

But the way we have approached the mind,

The way we have trained the mind is a prison and to be in the mind is an imprisonment.

How have we reached to this imprisonment?

How has the mind become a prison?

The logic,

The rational,

The reasoning,

All these static structures that allow the mind to build these concrete walls all throughout our lives.

From the very beginning of our life,

Through our house,

Through our family,

Through our education,

Through our culture,

Through our traditions and all the power of the logic,

Of the reasoning,

Of the rational,

We create the structure,

The static structure of the mind and we are imprisoned in it and then we look for freedom.

For most of us,

We are just busy in decorating this prison all our life.

We do not even care for the freedom.

We do not even care of what is outside this prison.

We only are busy in decorating this prison with more culture,

With more education,

With more degrees,

With bachelor's,

Master's,

PhD,

Learning all about the mind,

Learning all about the life,

In education,

In rationals,

In logic,

In this prison of the mind.

But life is happening outside the mind.

Life is flowing outside this static prison that we have created of the mind.

How do we come out of this prison?

How do we break free?

How do we taste this ultimate freedom?

See that what you are experiencing right now in the lockdowns where you have tasted freedom before,

You know what freedom is,

You know how it feels to be outside and when you are put for a while into your home,

You feel the sense of a lockdown.

The mind is the same and you have been in this lockdown,

In this mind for not just a few days,

For your entire lifetime,

For several lifetimes you have been in this lockdown simply because of the way you are conditioning yourself.

Nobody else is doing that.

You are conditioning,

You are creating this prison called mind by your own hands,

By your own logic,

By your own reasoning,

By your own rationals.

You are only trained in that.

The way it should have been done is to also be trained in the illogical.

With the logic,

Also the illogical.

The rational and the irrational.

The reasoning and beyond reasoning.

If you were using the mind in its full spectrum,

Not just the static structures of it,

But the dynamism of your mind,

Which is always fluid,

Which is always recreating itself,

Which is always seeing every moment of life as a dynamic moment,

Having no reference to the past,

Having no reference to the future,

Is very much right now,

In the right now,

In the present.

In the dynamic mind there is freedom as well,

But we are caught in this static mind of our logic,

Of our reasoning,

Of our own imprisonment.

And then to free us of this imprisonment,

All these traditions,

All these wisdom traditions,

Have given their own ways.

If you go through the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,

The entire Yoga Sutras are giving you a discipline,

A system,

So that you can train the mind,

So that you can conquer the mind,

So that you can make the mind more dynamic.

Not just static,

Not just strengthening the logic of the mind,

But strengthening also the illogical of the mind.

So Yoga gives you that system to train the mind.

Zen is another way of taking you out of the mind.

It just follows the illogical.

It does not even go towards the logic,

Towards the rational,

It is all based on the irrational,

The illogical,

The beyond reasoning of things,

And as an example,

To come out of the mind Zen gives you koan.

It gives you those ideas,

Those visualizations to meditate upon,

And as you meditate upon those irrational ideas,

You come out of the mind.

There is a famous Zen koan where the disciple,

Riko,

Is asking the master,

Nansen,

How to get the goose out of the bottle.

Let me share this with you.

It's a small,

Very small,

Beautiful,

Irrational anecdote.

Meditate over it,

And as we go into the series on Zen,

Then we will go deeper into that,

But for now,

For your contemplations,

Let us listen to that short anecdote.

Riko,

The disciple,

He goes to the master Nansen,

He says how to get the goose out of the bottle.

What is this goose?

He says,

If there is a small goosling put in a glass bottle,

And is fed from the top,

And the goosling grows so much it grows,

That there is no space left in the bottle anymore,

How do you take that goose,

That goosling which has become the goose,

That goose out of the bottle without breaking the bottle,

Without harming the goose.

This is a koan which is given in Zen,

And you meditate over it,

And here,

Riko,

The disciple approaches the master,

Says,

How,

Explain me this koan,

How to get the goose out of the bottle.

The master Nansen,

He shouts,

Riko,

And gives a clap,

And says,

Do you see,

In that clap,

In that sudden shock,

Riko sees how the goose is out of the bottle.

Meditate over this Zen koan,

We will take this in the series of Zen,

And now,

To Tantra.

So Yoga gave you a system,

Zen gives you a koan,

An irrational illogical visualization to meditate on,

And Tantra gives you techniques.

It gives you techniques for you to come out of the mind,

Out of the imprisonment of the mind.

Let us listen to what this technique is for the day.

Tantra says,

Unmind the mind until there is no mind.

Such a short beautiful technique.

Unmind the mind until there is no mind.

That's the technique for the day from Tantra,

Unmind the mind.

See that mind has this structure,

This structure of rationals,

Of logics,

Of this construction which is static.

How do you unmind the mind as a technique?

When you sit in silence,

You observe your mind,

You observe your thoughts,

And you see that there is this,

All these thoughts,

They have a syntax,

They have an energy behind,

They have a structure behind.

If you take the syntax,

If you take the structure,

Then the sentence of the thoughts loses its energy,

And it becomes unminding.

The process of mind becomes unminding,

And you do that until there is no mind.

Another way to understand this,

An Englishman,

A German,

And an Italian,

They were caught as prisoners of war,

They were put in a room for interrogation,

And called one by one for interrogation.

They called the Englishmen first into the room,

Into the next room,

Alone,

With several interrogators.

They tortured the Englishmen,

They hit the Englishmen,

They did everything to the Englishmen,

And after all the beating,

All the punishment,

In two hours,

The Englishman spoke.

He gave away all his secrets.

He went back to the room where all the three were locked,

And then the Frenchman,

Or the German,

Was called,

And he was again put into the interrogation room,

Beaten up,

Tortured,

Done all sorts of things to him.

It took four hours to break the German,

And he again also gave all his secrets,

He spoke all what he knew,

He was completely exhausted,

He was put back into the room,

And then the Italian was taken into the interrogation room,

He was again tortured,

Beaten,

Done everything,

All forms of horrible things to him,

For hours and hours and hours,

Ten hours,

He was beaten all over,

He was completely done,

But no secret came out,

He did not say a word,

He could not speak at all,

And the interrogators,

They could not do anything anymore,

They were done with all their techniques,

All their tricks,

So they let the Italian free,

They thought,

He does not know anything.

Few days later,

The Englishmen,

The German,

And the Italian,

They met in a bar.

They over a drink of whisky,

They were discussing what happened,

Both the Englishmen and the German,

They tapped on the back of Italian,

They said,

Wow,

You are brave,

They were torturing you for hours and hours,

Ten hours of torture,

And you did not speak a word,

How did you do that?

The Italian said,

They had tied my hands at my back,

How could I have spoken?

Your mind also has hands,

Your mind also has a way to speak,

This inner chatter that you have,

Also has a way,

Also has a syntax,

If you take that syntax out,

If you break that syntax,

If you for a while take that energy out of all the inner chatter,

Not trying to stop the inner chatter,

Not trying to stop the thoughts,

Not trying to stop all the contents that arise in your consciousness,

But rather take their syntax out,

Pull the structure out,

Loosen that structure,

Take that energy out,

When you do that,

Until there is no mind,

Until all those words,

All those structures,

They lose their energy,

And they fall on the ground,

And there is complete stillness,

There is complete silence.

So the technique is,

Unmind the mind until there is no mind.

Very simple,

Try it,

See it in your own experience,

How you feel about it,

How you yourself apply this,

Taking the energy of your thoughts,

Taking the energy of the contents of your consciousness,

And being in silence,

Being in awareness.

Please close your eyes and take a posture that is comfortable for you.

Have your back,

Neck,

And head straight.

Your body relaxed.

Take a nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose,

And exhale from the nose,

Allowing your body to rest,

To settle in a posture where you can leave the body for the next moments.

And shifting your awareness inwards,

Towards your mind.

Simply observe your mind,

Your thoughts,

Your inner chatter,

No participation,

Simply observing,

Silently observing your mind.

Thank you.

As more stillness arrives in you,

More silence,

Observe your mind.

It is more locked m and as you observe your thoughts Take the syntax,

Take the meaning away from these thoughts.

Take the syntax,

Take the meaning away from these thoughts.

Thoughts rise and fall.

You simply take the syntax,

The meaning,

The structure away from these thoughts.

You simply take the syntax,

Take the meaning away from these thoughts.

You simply take the syntax,

Take the meaning away from these thoughts.

No meaning,

No syntax,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

No meaning,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

No meaning,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

All the thoughts,

Energyless,

Dissolving in your silence,

Unminding the mind until there is no mind.

No meaning,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

Remaining aware,

Still,

Silent,

Observing your inner space.

If a thought arises,

Unmind the mind.

No meaning,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

No meaning to any thought,

To any image,

To any experience.

Simply sit in silence and awareness.

Leave all effort,

All technique.

Let yourself go in this silence.

No meaning,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

Remaining aware,

Still,

In silence.

Don't hold on to anything.

Don't try to change anything.

No meaning,

No structure,

No energy in your thought.

Awareness back to your body.

Back to your silent mind,

To your silent breath.

Very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

Maintaining this silence,

Awareness and presence in this moment.

I had discussed the three ways,

The way of yoga,

The way of Zen,

The way of Tantra,

Of coming out of the mind.

And then there is this fourth way.

The fourth way is to simply sit in silence in these sessions without worrying about the words,

Without worrying about the meaning,

Without worrying about the teachings,

Without trying to grasp anything.

Simply sitting in this space which is created everyday for you to just be in it,

Be present in it,

Be in tune with the vibrations of this space.

That is the fourth way and if you wish to continue this fourth way in the rest of your life,

For that we have put together a community where the meditators of this group,

The meditators of this session,

They take this space beyond the sessions into a sharing of love,

Into a sharing of their silence,

Of their truth with their everyone else as everyone else together proceeds in their spiritual journey.

So if you wish to join the community,

Please write me an email with your interest,

With what you want from the community,

With what you would like to give back to the community.

Once again,

Thank you very much.

Namaste.