Your relationship with thoughts.
You know,
Because the minute we close our eyes,
You're going to have to deal with your thoughts.
And when you're a beginner,
You get very upset at these thoughts coming into your mind.
But when you study the ancient scriptures,
They say that your only choice is to make very good friends with your thoughts.
And what they mean by that is you should never push away a thought,
Because according to yoga,
There is no duality between being holy and divine and having a mind full of thoughts.
For example,
The Shiva Sutra says,
Mind is mantra.
So what do they mean by that?
Mind is mantra.
Shiva Sutra says,
Mind is just a field of energy,
And then it ripples with these waves of thought,
But those waves of thoughts are no different than the God force.
So imagine your mind like a lake,
And then it ripples,
And it's quiet,
And then it ripples again.
So when Shiva Sutra says,
Mind is mantra,
Don't be so upset at your thoughts.
They're just these ripples that come and go.
So when we start our meditation,
Don't be upset at thoughts.
You should make friends with them.
And one way to think of thoughts,
If you pour yourself some soda water or 7up,
You see there's two components.
There's the white liquid,
And then there's the bubbles.
So they're both the same.
The white liquid we call pure consciousness in yoga.
It's the background behind thoughts.
And then the thought is like a bubble.
But they're the same.
It's not that the thought is less holy than silence.
Yoga says,
You're not your mind.
Behind your busy mind,
There's another field called pure consciousness.
And that field is always there,
And then you wait.
And then there's no worry.
Why?
Because that's your actual nature.
Making friends with thoughts,
I'll tell you one thing.
That's no more holy than having a busy mind,
Because Shiva Sutra says,
Thoughts are just mantras.
They come and go.
You shouldn't take thoughts so seriously.
If you're washing some dishes,
And you say,
Oh,
Now I'm becoming very old.
Shiva Sutra says,
That's just noise.
As long as you don't invest in the meaning of thought,
Thoughts do not bother you.
So what happens to a meditator?
They learn to watch thoughts and let them go.
My own mind is very unreliable first thing in the morning.
When I first wake up,
My mind just pours out everything.
So I've gotten to know myself.
Between the time I get up from bed,
Until I shave and brush my teeth,
During that time,
My mind is unreliable.
Busy,
Busy,
Busy.
So I've just learned to watch it.
I know during that hour,
My mind just talks about everything.
Like,
You know,
If you have a five-year-old,
You don't hit them if they talk.
You just let them talk.
This is a big key to your success in spirituality,
Whether you meditate or not.
Do you believe your thoughts,
Or you just let it come and go once in a while?
Everybody goes crazy at some moments during the day.
But you're not that craziness.
It's just noise.
Actually,
There are Vedic names for this.
There are two terms called nimasa and anmasa.
In the Vedas,
They say that Shiva,
The God force,
Has an outward motion and an inward motion.
That's not so surprising.
Some of you are very busy during the day.
That's nimasa.
And then you come home,
You go to sleep.
That's anmasa.
If you watch the sea,
The wave comes onto the beach and then drowns back into the ocean.
There's young age,
Old age,
Money,
No money,
Half moon,
Full moon.
According to yoga,
Everything goes through the cycle of nimasa,
Which is activity,
Anmasa.
Look at your own mind.
Just now you were waiting for the next thought.
You went into anmasa.
And then you had a thought.
Come back to nimasa.
If you're a real yogi,
You won't say that Shirdi Baba's temple is more holy than the bazaar.
That's not true.
The way you can tell a very mature person is that when they go into the bazaar,
They're in the same field as in Satya Sai Baba's ashram.
It's the same thing.
Everywhere.
You're just awake.
When your heart opens,
You'll be in love with everybody.
But if you shut down,
Then you won't be able to love anybody else.
It's all internal.
Everything in yoga is internal.
If you want to be rich,
You have to be rich inside.
If you want to be in comfort,
You have to have self-deservedness.
Some of you give too much to others.
So if I want to give you something,
You say,
Oh,
Thank you,
Thank you.
You don't take.
Then you're not rich because you can't take.
You're too much of a giver.
Like that.
So let's come back to thoughts.
For the rest of your life,
You're going to experience only two things.
This is the law of life in yoga.
Nimasa means activity.
Anmasa means retreat.
Everything in nature,
The sea comes to the shore,
Goes back.
Sleep,
Activity.
That's it.
Look at the tiger.
It gets hungry,
And then sleeps under the shade.
That's the rest of your life.
Just these two things.
Somebody asked Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
What is the life of an enlightened man?
He said,
Very simple.
Rest,
Activity,
Rest,
Activity.
That's about as complex as life is.
The iPod,
The iPad,
Worry,
Anxiety,
All of that is extra.
If you look at the dolphin,
The dolphin is not worried about is there going to be fish for lunch or not.
It just goes swimming.
When it's swimming,
It's in nimasa.
When it rests,
It's anmasa.
You could be a hugely successful executive,
But your life can really be summarized into these two phases.
And if your life becomes that,
Then you'll be much,
Much more successful.
All the rest of it is just extra activity.
When we start to meditate,
Don't bother with the number of thoughts you're having.
Irrelevant.
You should bother with whether you believe the meaning of the thoughts or not.
