We proceed, in this issue of the newsletter, with mental wellbeing, with a special focus on ‘Widening of the Mind’. The mind is the ideating instrument around which thoughts are formulated and expressed or actualized through various means. Our mind, we must have observed, “acts according to hard and fast rules and standards”. In order to realize this, effort is needed at self-observation as one lives life. How often are we carried away by the mind as the rushing waters of a vibrant river carry away a fragile leaf? In that speed and force, we forget; forget to take cognizant of who we are and how different parts of our being work and express. The mind, more over, may not be acting sovereignly on its own conviction and strength. It may very well be playing second fiddle to our whims and fancies; the will, thus weakened, cannot prevail over it to establish a certain course of the events that occur.
Our ordinary mind poses several obstacles towards perceiving a higher consciousness at work in our lives. The ordinary mind insists, with its “wrong reasonings, sentiments and judgements…. Or its mechanical activity, the slowness of response to the veiled or the initial touch…” The mind cannot be an instrument of truth as is shown too by the subjectivity of individual minds. We must have observed that one mind receives one thing and deduces about, reacts to it or concludes about it in one way and another mind does so in a diametrically opposite manner. This is because mental activities are different and therefore make different results of the same experience. One who is inclined towards discovering the truth behind the apparent, needs to, as a result, look beyond and above the mind towards the sustaining substance that animates all that we are. A conscious collaboration with a higher force may be a possibility, in this way.
Sri Aurobindo says, “Ideas and ideals belong to the mind and are half-truths only; the mind too is more often then not, satisfied with merely having an ideal, with the pleasure of idealizing while life always remains the same, untransformed or changed only a little and mostly in appearances…To realize the Divine Truth is always the aim, either beyond or in life also – and in the latter case it is necessary to transform mind and life which cannot be done without surrender to the action of the Divine Force, the Mother.”
It is said that the first aim in Yoga is to open the mind to a higher spiritual consciousness. “The Divine Consciousness acts from a light that is beyond that level of human consciousness which makes the human standard of these things. It acts for and from a greater good than the apparent good men follow after…. And conceive.” The human mind therefore needs to rise to a higher consciousness. Then perhaps a transformation is possible. How then to transform mind? A restless mind cannot possibly open to a higher spiritual consciousness; “… a quiet mind is the first need.”
We are back at an aspiration, a self-effort and an offering of that effort to the Divine. The school in which widening of the mind can take place is, happily, one’s own day to day, minute to minute life…” - varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences..” A quiet, silenced mind opens the door to receive, process and select, while reaching out to something greater, that stands beyond and above the mind.
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