Harnessing the True Power of the Mind

Sadhguru speaks about how we can tap into the true possibility of the mind, by reaching the Chitta, a dimension where God becomes your slave! 

Changing Your Life

Have you ever wanted to really change your life? Not just take a vacation to some exotic island or resort, but actually lift yourself out of your daily routine. Have you ever felt that your life is manifesting the same results daily? You wake up, breakfast, work, home, dinner, media check and then sleep, only to repeat the cycle again on the next day. The weekend might offer a few variations, but your thinking and emotions continue in a repeating cycle, for the most part. We often navigate our lives through the filter of our constant thoughts and emotions. We can sometimes get so intertwined in our thought processes that it can be very difficult to discern between what is real and what is imagined.

The Chemical Awareness Connection

Thinking is a chemical process. Every thought and every emotion creates molecules known as neuropeptides. These neuropeptides travel throughout the body, looking for the receptor sites of cells and neurons, consequently creating our body-mind sensations. As an example, if you are feeling joyful, your blood will show high levels of interleukin and interferon, anticancer drugs and your skin will be shown to be loaded with neuropeptides that have antidepressant effects. Expanding your mindfulness increases energy flow and the chemical reactions that create joyfulness; the more this occurs, the more flexible, balanced, and creative you become.

Harnessing the True Power of the Mind

Sadhguru: Chit Shakti meditation is not just visualization. In the yogic understanding, there are 16 dimensions to the human mind. These 16 dimensions fall into four categories. These four categories are known as buddhi, manas, ahankara, and chitta. Buddhi is the intellect – the logical dimension of thought. Unfortunately, the modern education systems and modern sciences have largely limited themselves to buddhi. That is a buddhu (foolish) way of existence.

The Limitation of the Intellect

Buddhi or the intellect cannot function without a certain bank of memory or data. Depending on the data you have, the intellect plays around. Suppose in your memory system, there are 10 gigabytes of memory. Depending on how sharp your buddhi is, one person can produce, let’s say, a trillion thoughts with these 10 gigabytes. Someone else can produce 10 trillion thoughts with the same 10 gigabytes of memory.

If you can think a little better than someone else, it is considered as intelligence today. If someone says one thing and you can say ten things to that, you may be socially smart, but you are not any more intelligent. Unfortunately, in today’s systems of education and academics, everything is determined by this. If you can make more things out of it, you are considered intelligent, which is not true – you only have a sharper buddhi. The buddhi will not take you beyond limits in any way, because it can only function based on the data that is already there. It is not capable of accessing anything beyond that.

The Memory of Your Forefathers

The next dimension is called manas. Manas has many layers to it. But manas is not just the brain – it is right across the body. Every cell in the body has a phenomenal memory – not just of this life but of millions of years. Your body clearly remembers how your forefathers were a million years ago. Top to bottom, there is manas – this is called manomaya kosha. In every cell in the body, there is memory and intelligence, but no intellect. Intellect is only in the brain.

In English language, everything comes under one banner called “mind.” The idea that intelligence is only in the brain has produced human beings whose consciousness is seriously constipated. What is in the brain is intellect, not intelligence. Intelligence and memory are right across your body. But people have never been trained how to use this intelligence. Instead, they use their intellect for everything. No wonder they are stressed out whatever job you give them. The whole weight is on only one dimension of the mind out of sixteen. It is like loading a sixteen-wheeler truck and trying to drive on only one wheel – you can imagine the stress! That is what today’s world is going through.

People may be using other dimensions of the mind marginally, unconsciously, but they are not trained to use them. They have only been trained to use their buddhi, or their intellect. They are very smart. They know everything about everything, but they do not know how to figure their own life. They do not even know how to sit here peacefully and at total ease within themselves. If there is true intelligence, the first thing that you need to figure out is how to make life happen. You know how to make the world happen, but you do not know how to make your life happen. You do not know how to conduct your mind, your energies, your emotions or your body.

If you ask people to become fit, they become tight. If you ask them to live in a more natural way, they become fat. Where is the intelligence? There is only intellect. Intellect looks good only in comparison. Suppose you are the only person on the planet, your intellect will not mean anything. Only because there are a few idiots around you, you shine. By itself, intellect will not be of any consequence.

The Sense of Identity

The intellect directly connects with the third dimension of your mind, called ahankara. Ahankara is sometimes translated as ego, but it is much more than that. Ahankara gives you a sense of identity. Once your ahankara takes on an identity, your intellect functions only in that context. It is important to function beyond the intellect, because the intellect is seriously enslaved to your identity.

Our identities, such as belonging to a certain nation, community, or whatever else, are necessary for our survival in a particular society. But you cannot think beyond this because you are functioning only from your intellect, and the intellect takes its sustenance from ahankara. Only along the axis of ahankara, the intellect can function. The intellect cannot transcend this, because that is its nature. But there are other ways to know life beyond the identities we have taken on for our survival in the world.

The Cosmic Intelligence

The fourth category of the mind is called chitta. Chitta is mind without memory – pure intelligence. This intelligence is like the cosmic intelligence – simply there. Everything happens because of that. It does not function out of memory – it simply functions. In a way, what you call cosmos is a living mind, not in the sense of intellect but in the sense of chitta. Chitta is the last point of the mind. It connects to the basis of creation within you. It connects you with your consciousness.

Chitta is always on – whether you are awake or asleep. Your intellect comes on and goes off. Many times it fails, even when you are awake. If chitta or the intelligence within you was not always on, you could not stay alive. Try to conduct your breath with your intellect – you will go crazy. Chitta is keeping you alive, keeping you going, making life happen. If you touch this dimension of your mind, which is the linking point to one’s consciousness, you do not even have to wish for anything, you do not have to dream of anything – the best possible thing that can happen to you will anyway happen.

The Divine Enslaved

When people touch this dimension of the mind, it is called ishwara pranidhana in yoga. This means God becomes your slave – he works for you. You know, yogis say, “Shiva is my servant. He does everything for me.” In a way, otherwise, I would not be here. Once you know how to consciously access your chitta, everything that is needed will simply happen in the best possible way. If you go by your intellect or your buddhi, today you think “this is it,” tomorrow morning you think “that is it” – like this it goes on endlessly.

Once you know how to consciously keep your chitta on, once the Divine is your servant, when someone really efficient is working for you, you do not have to do anything. Simply sit; the best things will happen – things that you could not imagine. People always think if their dreams come true, their life will be great. I think that is a very poor life, because you cannot dream about anything that is not at all in your experience. My wish and my blessing for you is things that you could not dream of, things that you never thought possible, must happen to you. What you did not dream must happen to you – that is why you should not dream.

Instead of seeing how to delve deeper into yourself, you go on projecting stupid ideas into the world. People think that is a great thing to do. Last time when I was in the US, and someone said to me, “Sadhguru, how do you manifest all this?” I said, “I do not manifest anything. I am just fooling around. I got a very efficient partner [Shiva]. I simply leave it to him, and it happens.”

Chit Shakti is about touching the dimension of your mind that is pure intelligence – unsullied by memory, unsullied by identification. It is beyond ahankara, beyond buddhi, beyond judgment, beyond divisions – simply there, just like the intelligence of existence that makes everything happen. If you access this, you do not have to worry about what happens or what does not happen. It will happen in a way that you never imagined possible.

Once you have access to your chitta, it is also a multi-pointed telescope. It makes you see things that no one else can see – in every direction. It is your crystal ball. It is a magnifying glass that brings the very core of life close to you. For everyone else, it is far way. Everyone thinks the Divine is somewhere up there. Where exactly, no one knows. All they know is, it seems far away.

The moment you start looking at life through your chitta, where there is no memory, there is no karmic substance and no division. Suddenly, the Divine is right there, bang on, in your face all the time. You cannot miss it.

The idea of Chit Shakti is not to keep asking for things. The idea is that if the physical arrangements of life happen easily, you can dedicate more time for your spiritual wellbeing. It would be stupid if just because it happens easily, first you want to be a millionaire, then you want to be a billionaire. The main intention is that your physical life happens more easily, that it does not take your entire time to handle it, so that you will have time to close your eyes and sit. Please make use of it for this purpose.

Source Article: https://isha.sadhguru.org/us/en/wisdom/article/harnessing-true-power-of-mind

Related Video: 

The “Power to Create” meditations for Peace, Love, Health, and Success (also known as “Chit Shakti”) are available at the Isha Download Store.

The Four Parts of the Mind

Sadhguru looks at how in the yogic system, the mind is seen as having 16 parts. He looks at four fundamental parts – the buddhi or intellect, the ahankara or identity, the manas or memory and chitta, which is pure intelligence. He explains how modern societies have given too much significance to the intellect, which has led to a skewed way of approaching life. He also explains that if we can touch chitta, we have access to the source of creation.

Related Articles: 

 Accessing Pure Intelligence on the Path of Gnana Yoga

Is the mind a miracle or a mess? Sadhguru speaks about gnana yoga, the path of “knowing”. 

https://isha.sadhguru.org/us/en/wisdom/article/accessing-pure-intelligence-gnana-yoga

When God Becomes Your Slave

Sadhguru speaks about  touching the dimension of intelligence, known as chitta, which is unsullied by memory.

https://isha.sadhguru.org/us/en/wisdom/article/when-god-becomes-your-slave