Mind is like Water

Your body is like a hard shell. And your mind, the inner self is like water. You are like water inside. Nature of water is cooling and flowing. But when the innermost, which is like water, is burning with jealousy, anger, frustration and all the fires you put inside, then the water boils and its cooling nature disappears.

Then how does one cool the water? Just imagine a pot and underneath are all these burning sticks. To cool the water you have to remove these sticks. All emotions are linked with people, objects and events.

Catching on to objects, people or relationships hinders freedom, liberation. You are hankering for some greater joy that is not there, not going to be there. I will have greater joy if I have a better companion or if I have lot of money or if I have lot of freedom.

Money gives you a hallucination that you have better freedom. Your mind tells you that with more money one could have more freedom; could travel anywhere; do whatever one wanted; these hallucinating ideas come into the mind. And when this idea comes in the mind, it binds you. When you feel bound, you feel very stiff and there is no freedom. The moment you become soft and non-resisting inside, the stiffness drops, the feeling of being bound goes and everything else including wealth, comfort and prosperity follow.

So, remove all this firewood and the water will become cooler. Because “cool” is the nature of water. When all these other negative stresses, burning sticks are removed, water will possess all its natural qualities — humbleness, humility, and naturalness — just like the nature of water which flows down.

All the good qualities are inside us. Just like in an atom, the core is positive and the negativity is peripheral. Know that it’s not in the core. Your nature is calmness, coolness. If it wasn’t your nature, you would never feel at home in it.

When we feel weak and terrible, we want to speak to someone and seek sympathy and support. When we are stressed we feel restricted and crushed. In happiness our consciousness expands. This is happening in the spiritual path. People feel that they are not bound, and that inner softness is there. Mind means moods, thoughts, opinions, ideas, all these things that we collect. And, ‘no mind’ is meditation. Yoga, meditation and spirituality are about giving comfort to your soul and transforming all the negative tendencies in the mind.

When you meditate, you go off the influence of the mind and go into the self. The mantra of knowledge is - in this world there is no other. The mantra of love is — there is no one who doesn’t belong to me. When the mind is free from all impressions and concepts, you are liberated. When you know that everything is changing - all relationships, people, body, feelings - suddenly the mind, which clings on to misery, comes back to you.

A fulfillment, centeredness, a subtle solid strength comes from within. Then if fame comes, money comes, it doesn’t touch you. It comes or doesn’t come, it doesn’t matter to you.

Reference
http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/column_mind-is-like-water_1523347
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/168360/mind-like-water.html