How Do You Stop the Mind’s Chatter?

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How Do You Stop the Mind’s Chatter?

Sadhguru, I wanted to know that when we are silent, still we feel that mind chattering, which always bothers us, and our thought always shifts back to past and future imaginations, which will not be any different, how to get rid of it?

A whole lot of thought about this thoughtlessness. Thoughtlessness, no mind, these kinds of terms have been propagated all over the place. These terms have been badly misunderstood, and made all kinds of things, and people are striving, “How to stop my mind?” It took millions of years of evolution to get the mind of this kind of capability. Isn’t it? Millions of years of tremendous amount of nature’s work that today you have a mind of this kind of scope. Now you want to stop it. Why is it that you want to stop it? If your mind was constantly producing absolute pleasantness for you, would you think how to stop this mind? Would you? No. It’s producing a lot of unpleasantness. That’s why you’re thinking of how to stop the mind.

This is the first thing, wherever you go in the world, this has gone so much into people’s mind. If you tell them you meditate, they they, “But Sadhguru, I’m not able to stop my mind.” I said, “That will happen only after you stop your kidneys, liver, heart. You stop all these things, then the mind will also stop. Do you want it to stop?” “No.” “Then why do you want the mind to stop? Why do you have such a horrible prejudice against the mind? You don’t mind if your heart is beating. You can meditate. You don’t mind if your liver is working. You can meditate. Your kidneys are functioning. You can meditate. If your brain functions, you can’t meditate? What is the problem? You seem to have something against intelligence.”

This is the conspiracy of the stupid against human intelligence that to meditate means your brain must be frozen. Now, you don’t have to freeze your brain. We were looking at this. We will initiate you into shambhavi. It is a simple process. There are many ways to do it. This is one simple way, but it’s a powerful process. If you sit here, you will see your body is here, your mind is somewhere, who you are is somewhere else. Once there is a space between you and the mind, then what the mind is not doing, what the mind is doing is not even an issue. It is like you’re stuck in the traffic jam. You’re struggling through the traffic. That’s one experience.

Suppose you are either standing on Chamundi Hill, or you are floating in a hot air balloon and look down at all the traffic, very peacefully, traffic. Why? Because the distance, isn’t it? When you are in it, traffic is a different experience. From really high up there, sitting in a hot air balloon, you look down, you can’t even hear the sounds, looks wonderful, traffic. Isn’t it? Yes or no?

Yes.

Because there’s a distance. Once there’s a distance between you and your mind’s activity, mind is not a problem. Mind is a miracle. It is not a problem. Anyway, if thoughts are going continuously, if you’re having a mental diarrhea, obviously you ate some bad food, isn’t it? Yes. You’re having a physical diarrhea, you ate some bad food, isn’t it? If you’re having a mental diarrhea, you obviously consumed something wrong. What this wrong thing could be is the moment you identify yourself with something that you are not, then you are finished. Your mind is a continuous runs. There is no other way. Do what you want. Try as hard as you want. It is not going to stop. If you do not identify yourself with anything that you are not, you know how to be with everything, you know how to use everything, but you’re not identified with it, then you will see, if you sit here, simply mind will be like this. You want to use it? You can use it. Otherwise, it will be like this.

Right now, your hands are like this, or you’re holding it tighter, because it will go all over, is it? No. You can keep it like this. You can keep it like this. You can keep it like this. When you want to use it, you can use it. It’s a useful instrument. Suppose your hands become like this. You know some people have become like this? Yes or no? If it becomes like this, you will become ridiculous, isn’t it? If it happens to your mind, also you are equally ridiculous. It is just that you are living in the comfort that nobody else can see it, but people can see it. They watch you closely enough, they can see it, isn’t it? Whether they can see it or not, that’s not the point. The point is the most important faculty of your life is out of control. It doesn’t matter whether they can see it or not. That’s not the issue. The issue is the most important faculty in your life is out of control, doing its own rubbish all the time, not doing what you want it to do.

If you have to be freed from this ailment, you should stop eating bad food. Wrong food or bad food means you are identifying yourself with things that you are not. If you sit here, if you’re not identified with this and with this, then you will see everything is just fine. Then your mind will do what you want it to do. Otherwise it will simply hang there, and that is how it should be. Mind should not be telling its own stories all the time. It should tell the story that you want it to tell, isn’t it? Otherwise it’s quite a nuisance.