Mental Activity Hides Your Real Nature

Divine Life Society Publication: - Lectures on Raja Yoga by Swami Chidananda

If we can consciously overcome the activity of the mind and control it, master it and totally subdue it then we can rest in a permanent state where all experiences are overcome. They are negated, and in that state of a conscious cessation of mental processes, you can attain to a state of perfect peace, perfect rest, perfect silence. Thus when the state of absolute silence of the mind is attained, whatever is beyond the mind becomes manifest. It now prevails in a field of your experience.

Consciousness becomes characterized not by the experience of mental state, but consciousness becomes characterized by the experience of the Self, your true Self. For, there is nothing to obstruct. There is nothing to bar it or prevent it. When consciousness is characterized by mental activity, this mental activity becomes, as it were, like a cloud in front of the sun. Even though the Sun is there, when the cloud comes in front of it, it cannot be seen.

You can see the pebbles at the bottom of an absolutely placid lake very clearly. But, if the surface is agitated, if it is made into ripples, then you cannot perceive clearly the bed of the lake. In the same way, the inner basis of your being is your Self. That is the Reality. That is of the nature of peace and joy. But, if it is covered or if it is in a state of constant agitation, activity, the substratum cannot be seen clearly. It appears to be agitated also, because of its association with the covering medium, the mind.

Mind is the agitator of the surface of the lake of human consciousness and this consciousness is a part of the Divine Consciousness and it is of the nature of Bliss.

Excerpts from:

Mental Activity Hides Your Real Nature – Lectures on Raja Yoga by Swami Chidananda

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