વિશાળ અવકાશ ...

વિશાળ અવકાશ મસ્તિષ્ક મહીં 

સ્થિર અવરજવર વિહીન ખાલી,

શાંત, ૠજુ જાણે પોત મલમલી, 

ઠરાવ એવો જાણે આમ સદીઓથી!

પ્રવેશે વસવા વચાળે વિચારવેદી-

અનેકોમાં વધવા ઉત્તરોત્તર જલ્દી!

ન નડે સભાન ચિત્તને એ ખલેલ વૃત્તિ 

નિર્લેપભાવે નિહાળે બિનજરૂરી ઘૂસણખોરી.

દર આગંતુક ન હોય આવકાર્ય અતિથિ 

એમ જ પસાર થઈ જવા દે વિનાનોંધણી.

ખરો જાગૃત જાણે વિચારતત્વની ગતિ

સીમિત સ્થાન ને અવધિ જરૂર પૂરતી. 

પણ સત્કારરૂપ ને આવશ્યક જો મંગળકારી

અવકાશમાં એકરૂપ થઈ બની રહે જો પ્રાર્થી.

 

જૂન ૨૦૧૯

Bad thoughts come because there is something corresponding somewhere within you; otherwise you might see something sing like that, but they would not come inside you. I suppose the question means: why do you suddenly think something bad?

Because the stages are very different. I have already explained to you that the mental atmosphere is worse than any public place when a crowd is there: innumerable ideas, thoughts of all kinds and all forms criss-cross in such a complicated tangle that it is impossible to make out anything precise. Your head is in the midst of it, and your mind even more so: it bathes in it as one bathes in the sea. And all this comes and goes, comes, turns, collides, enters, goes out. If you were conscious of the mental atmosphere in which you live, obviously it would be a little maddening! I think personal cerebral limits are quite necessary as a filter, for a very long time in life.

To be able to get out of all that and live fully in the mental atmosphere as it is, seeing it as it is ― it is the same for the vital atmosphere, by the way; that is perhaps yet uglier!― to live in it and see it as it is, one must be strong, one must have a very steady sense of inner direction. But in any case, whether you see it or not, whether you feel it or not, it is a fact, it is like that. So one cannot ask where bad thoughts come from ― they are everywhere. Why do they come? ― where would they go? You are right in the midst of them!

What governs this filter of consciousness which makes you conscious of certain thoughts and not conscious of others, is your inner attitude, your inner affinities, your inner habits ― I am speaking of the mind, not of the psychic ― it is your education, your cerebral development, etc. That is a kind of filter formed by your ego, and certain thoughts pass through it and others don’t ― automatically. That is why the nature of the thoughts you receive may be quite an important indication for you of the kind of character you have ― it may be quite subconscious for you, for a man is not in the habit of really knowing himself, but it is an indication of the general tendency of your character.

…

If you know how to rise to a higher level, simply into a region of the speculative mind which is not quite the ordinary physical mind, you can see all this play and all this struggle, all this conflict, all these contradictions as a curiosity which does not touch or affect you. If you rise a step higher still and see the goal towards which you want to go, you will gradually come to discern between ideas favourable to your progress which you will keep, and ideas opposed to this progress which harm and impair it; and from above you will have the power to set them aside, calmly, without being otherwise affected by them. But if you remain there, at that level in the midst of that confusion and conflict, well, you risk getting a headache!

The best thing to do is to occupy yourself with something practical which will compel you to concentrate specially: studies, work or some physical occupation for the body which demands attention ― anything at all that forces you to concentrate on what you are doing and no longer be a prey to these ramblings. But if you have the misfortune to remain there and look at them, then surely, as I said, you will get a headache. For it is a problem which must be resolved either by a descent into practical life and a concentration on some practical effort or else by rising above and looking from above at all this chaos so as to be able to bring some order into it and set it right.

But one must never remain on the same plane, it is a plane which is no good either for physical or moral health.

*Questions and Answers (1956): 27 June 1956

Flower Name: Nerium oleander

Oleander, Rosebay

Significance: Sweetness of Thought Turned Exclusively towards the Divine

Lovely, joyful, sweet and calm, sheltered from all conflicts.