Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Comparing a Vacant Mind and a Calm Mind

Transcript

Comparing a Vacant Mind and a Calm Mind · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  When one steps back and begins to observe the mind's action and
• 0:05
  what Swami Vivekananda calls the mind's stuff Chitta, a number of
• 0:10
  different statuses can be seen. The normal human mind is usually
• 0:15
  constantly active and it jumps from one thing to another in
• 0:18
  response to impulses, impressions, sensations, vital
• 0:23
  or physical drives, or emotional or mental preoccupations or
• 0:28
  focus. There are other states as well.
• 0:32
  Sri Ro Binda describes the difference between a vacant
• 0:36
  mind, which by definition cannot undertake or carry out any
• 0:41
  actions requiring mental activity, and a calm mind which
• 0:46
  is able to respond even while maintaining a basic poise.
• 0:53
  There is also a status of a dull mind, which is cloudy,
• 0:56
  relatively inert and unable to focus.
• 1:00
  A mind filled with ambitions and desires that can take on the
• 1:04
  color of the vital force acting upon it.
• 1:07
  And a silent mind where the mind is alert, receptive, without the
• 1:13
  flow of linear thoughts, words or images that populate the
• 1:17
  normal mind's activity. The predominance of one or
• 1:21
  another of the gunas. Thomas Rajas Satwa determines
• 1:27
  which status of mind occurs at any point in time.
• 1:31
  The distinguishing characteristics of these mind
• 1:34
  states are the activity, the source of the activity, and the
• 1:38
  quality of the chitta. In these situations, the mind
• 1:43
  stuff is sometimes referred to as a lake with waves or ripples
• 1:47
  disturbing the surface until such time as it becomes calm and
• 1:52
  receptive, at which point the ripples are stilled.
• 1:56
  In some cases, the ripples are described as taking place on the
• 2:00
  surface without disturbing the deep water that maintains its
• 2:06
  stillness. It is in the calm mind or the
• 2:10
  entirely silent but not vacant mind that the seeker can receive
• 2:16
  and respond to the higher spiritual knowledge and force
• 2:20
  and put that into action, Sriorbinda writes quote.
• 2:26
  The difference between a vacant mind and a calm mind is this,
• 2:30
  that when the mind is vacant there is no thought, no
• 2:34
  conception, no mental action of any kind except an essential
• 2:39
  perception of things without the formed idea.
• 2:43
  But in the calm mind it is the substance of the mental being
• 2:47
  that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it.
• 2:52
  If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of
• 2:56
  the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind.
• 3:01
  As the flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air, it
• 3:05
  passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace.
• 3:11
  Even if 1000 images or the most violent events pass across it,
• 3:17
  the calm stillness remains, as if the very texture of the mind
• 3:21
  were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace.
• 3:25
  A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act even
• 3:29
  intensely and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental
• 3:34
  stillness, originating nothing from itself but receiving from
• 3:39
  above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of
• 3:44
  its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the
• 3:49
  joy of the truth and the happy power and light of its passage.
• 3:54
  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases
• 3:59
  of Yoga, Chapter 1. Calm, Peace and Equality.
• 4:04
  Pages 2:00 to 3:00.