"The mind is a prison", is a correct but an incomplete statement.
The mind is surely a prison when intelligence is not in operation. When one is not attentive, then the mind surely becomes a prison; a prison of the past, a prison in which others have enslaved you.
But the mind is not a prison when we are acting intelligently.
Somebody has said that, “the mind is both- your best friend and your worst enemy.”
When is it your best friend?
When the same mind is operating intelligently.
And when is it your worst enemy?
When intelligence is switched off.
Intelligence operates only in an environment of Attention. Alternately, you could say intelligence only operates in love.
When there is no attention, when there is no care or love, then intelligence does not function. And then the mind is your worst enemy. It is a prison, more difficult to break out of the central jail.
There are only two factors that dominate the mind. The jail that we are talking of actually has two entries.
Only two policemen are guarding the gates- one is 'Past' and the second is ‘Others’. One is a slave either to the past or to the others.
What is slavery to the past?
Slavery of the past is, ‘I cannot go beyond my past’. ‘I cannot go beyond my background’. ‘In my family everyone does this, so I will also do this’. ‘Since childhood, I have been conditioned to do this, so I will keep on doing this’. This is called slavery of the past.
And what is slavery to the others?
Slavery of the others is, ‘I am not using intelligence’. ‘I am not using my free mind’. ‘I am allowing others to set terms of my life’. ‘Even though I am young and adult and capable, yet others are taking my life decisions’. ‘Others influence me very-very easily’. ‘I feel confused’. ‘In all matters of life, I always have to seek consultation’. ‘I am better-off when somebody else decides it for me’. ‘I follow the crowd’. This is slavery of others.
And these two are the two policemen who are guarding the jail, guarding the prison of the mind.
But the prison can be blown away, dynamited by something that you already have.
Intelligence is such dynamite. It blows away the prison in no time. The moment there is application of intelligence; all these prisons are reduced to dust.
We do not even need effort. They are gone. And remember that you are intelligent. It is just that in some of us, at some moments, the intelligence is awakened. In others, it remains a potentiality. In some of us, the intelligence is very much active. In others, it is sleeping. It is there, it is there with us but it is sleeping. It is sleeping because as we said that intelligence operates in the environment of attention or love.
So, if love is absent, if attention is absent, then intelligence will remain inactive and we will remain prisoners.
Those who want to break out of the prison must learn to be attentive, must be very careful to their own life, must see what is happening and see very clearly. And in the moment of seeing, you are no more a prisoner.
The same mind that is a hell of a prison, will become the heaven of joy; the heaven of freedom. Freedom, that we all deserve!
As human beings, we all deserve it. It is our birth right.
Joy that we all deserve!
Love that we all deserve!
But that cannot come to a prisoner. A prisoner knows no joy, no freedom, and no love. All of these are possible only in attention, only when you are watchful, only when you are really awake. Awake and seeing. Then nobody can make a prisoner of you.
Submitted September 04, 2018 at 12:31AM by acharya-prashant https://ift.tt/2LQXN60
