Mastering the Mind, Realising the Self: The Spiritual Guide To True Happiness And Inner Peace - Softcover

Sturgess, Stephen

9781785355264: Mastering the Mind, Realising the Self: The Spiritual Guide To True Happiness And Inner Peace

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ISBN 10: 1785355260 ISBN 13: 9781785355264

Publisher: Obooks, 2017

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Every person is an immortal spiritual being expressing their life through a material body, mind and senses. We are in this world to learn effectively and to eventually awaken to complete awareness and knowledge of our true spiritual nature and ultimate Reality. Spiritual life begins when you accept the necessity to aspire to know and realise directly the highest Truth. Your sincere and earnest desire to want to know Truth, will keep you open to the inflow of the nature of Truth in your own Self. On your spiritual path to inner freedom and Self- and God-realisation, this book will be a useful guide and source of inspiration towards understanding your mind and knowing your true Divine nature.

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About the Author

Stephen Sturgess is a yogi and spiritual author. He lives in London, UK.

Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Mastering the Mind, Realising the Self

The spiritual guide to true happiness and inner peace

By Stephen Sturgess

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Preface, 1, 
Part Two: The Different States of Consciousness, 77, 
Part Three: The Self, 89, 
Part Four: Meditation, the Path to Inner Peace and Bliss, 113, 
Part Five: Yoga Practices for Meditation, 187,

CHAPTER 1

Part One

The Mind

'Man shall not live on bread alone'

A healthy mind and body are important, but physical nourishment and nurturing alone are not sufficient to give true and lasting happiness and joy and inner fulfilment; we also have spiritual needs. This is reflected in what Jesus said in the Bible, "It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God'" (Luke 4:4). Here Jesus was referring back to words that had already been said previously in the Old Testament of the Bible in Deuteronomy 8:3.

Real Happiness

True happiness is never to be found outside the Self. Those who seek it there are as if chasing rainbows among the clouds! Paramhansa Yogananda, How to Be Happy All the Time: The Wisdom of Yogananda, Volume 1, Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, California, 2006

Real happiness is a direct knowledge of the nature of the Self. But everyone except those who are Self-realised are searching for it outside of themselves not knowing that it is an inner state of being. In fact, the natural state of the inner Self, your real identity and essential nature, is happiness, joy, peace, calmness and love. It is these divine qualities along with Light, Sound, Power and Wisdom, that we attribute to God, and by absorbing your consciousness in any of these primary qualities you can become attuned to the blissful God-Self within you that is Sat-Cit-Ananda (ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss).

In the New Testament of the Bible it is said:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God s Will is — His good, pleasing and perfect Will. Romans 12:2

How is the mind renewed? The mind is renewed through prayer, meditation, by practising spiritual practices (sadhana) to remove the mental and emotional obstacles of the mind, and by cultivating an awareness of the presence of God in every moment in your life. This is how we spiritualise the mind. Then the mind becomes spiritually purified and renewed, freed from its bad habits, negative thoughts, its limitations, and conditioning. If your mind is not spiritually illumined you are kept in the darkness of ignorance, and are unable to achieve the true heart's desire of divine purpose and spiritual fulfilment.

If you can truly understand and have mastery over your finite mind, you will be able to go beyond it. Through daily deep meditation you will be able to transfer your consciousness from the finite to the infinite. That supreme eternal joy or Bliss (Ananda) that we are all seeking is revealed only in the quietness of the mind and the stillness of the inner Self; it is there that you will find absolute Truth and everlasting joy. When you spiritually awaken to this reality you will know that it is futile to continue searching for happiness in anything outside, whether it be in a person, an object, or anything of this world – money, fame, power. Why? Because everything material of this world is transient; it is subject to change, and has a beginning and an end. It cannot promise you everlasting happiness and fulfilment. It is only when you concentrate on the true values of life that you will find true happiness. The more you are carried away by material desires and attachments to the pleasures of the world, the further you drift away from your spiritual centre, the divine inner Self. You will never be satisfied, fulfilled or content with only transitory satisfactions; in the end they will bring the seeds of disappointment, anxiety, worry, and sorrow ending in suffering. Desires can never be really fulfilled; they are only temporarily fulfilled. As soon as one desire has been temporarily satisfied, it is not long before the mind becomes restless again clamouring for satisfaction. It is a vicious cycle; restlessness creates desires, which creates further restlessness. These desires create deep active impressions (samskaras) in the subconscious mind. They are like seeds sown into the ground, and at the right time they sprout and appear above the ground as a plant. These desire seed impressions or samskaras lie dormant deep in the mind; then, when the time or condition is right they appear in the conscious mind as full-blown desires, creating a powerful urge within us to have them fulfilled and satisfied. If the desire is not satisfied then, one becomes frustrated and even angry.

What is Happiness?

Happiness depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon conditions of the inner mind. In order to be happy, one needs good health, an efficient mind, a prosperous life, the right work and, above all, an all-accomplishing wisdom. One cannot be happy just by holding the inner calm while completely ignoring the struggle for existence and the effort for success. Paramhansa Yogananda, How to Be Happy All the Time: The Wisdom of Yogananda, Volume 1, Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, CA, 2006

You can never make happiness the object of your desire or pleasure. Happiness cannot be objectified; it cannot be separated from you as your object. Happiness is beyond mental pleasure; happiness transcends the mind and expresses itself in pleasure. When you desire an object thinking that it will give you happiness, it is only when the desired object has been gained that your mind comes to rest – your body, mind and senses become relaxed, and there is no longer a desire. There is then a sense of happiness, the real nature of happiness shines by itself.

That happiness you experience is actually the real nature of yourself, but you are not able to see it. The enjoyment of happiness is being one with it. Unbroken happiness is peace. The desire which impels you to search comes from that happiness itself – 'I am Happiness' is the nature of the innermost Self. To go beyond the object of pleasure which you think is the source of happiness, trace the source of happiness you have enjoyed, to your real nature, and know it to be an expression of your own eternal Self.

Your essential real nature is freedom, peace and happiness itself. When you are truly happy you feel connected, happy and complete in yourself, but as soon as this happiness becomes interrupted you again feel separated, dissatisfied. You feel that there is something missing from your life. And every time you try to fulfil your desires and satisfy your needs, and become busy avoiding everything that you dislike and find disagreeable to you, your mind becomes agitated and unhappy. Those who have found inner peace, contentment and joy, who are not dependent on the world to provide their happiness and joy, are truly free. Those who are slavishly dependent on their happiness and joy from the world outside of themselves are like a rudderless boat without a captain or a compass to guide it out of the storm. It is only those who have learned to identify themselves with the unchanging Reality behind the waves and storms of changing objects and events in life that rise above them to enjoy lasting happiness and joy. It is those who have gained mastery over their minds that successfully attain inner peace and joy no matter what changes happen around them.

When we are unhappy and dissatisfied it is because we are overly identified and preoccupied with our body, our ego-personality, our desires and sense-attachments. All our energy goes into our efforts in creating, finding and sustaining enjoyment, sense- gratification and pleasure. This preoccupation of outwardly seeking happiness and satisfaction through transitory and fleeting pleasures in the world can never be totally satisfying or totally fulfilling. Yet, time and time again we endlessly pursue in the belief that happiness, the joy that we experience, lies outside of us in the objects, things and persons of the world. We erroneously think that they are the source of our happiness.

Your soul, being the reflection of the ever-joyous Spirit, is happiness itself.

Paramhansa Yogananda, How to Be Happy All the Time: The Wisdom of Yogananda, Volume 1, Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, CA, 2006

Happiness can be no other than a state of mind, and states of mind are continually changing from one moment to the next. When the mind is agitated or restless, we feel anxious, a feeling of sorrow and unhappiness comes over us like a dark cloud blocking the light of joy. Conversely, when we feel calm, peaceful and content, we feel inner joy like the sun shining its light upon us. There is a difference between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is something that the mind experiences. Happiness transcends the mind; it is your own real nature, the Self, of inner peace that you experience as happiness. In relation to the mind and pleasure you say I am happy, but those who abide in the indwelling Self beyond subject-object relationship know I am happiness, for the Self is happiness itself. Knowingly or unknowingly searching for happiness in all your activities are only attempts to experience that happiness of the Self, that is ever-present within you.

Just as a lamp illumines and reveals a pot and other objects, so also the Self (Atman) alone illumines the mind, sense organs, etc. These material objects by themselves cannot illumine themselves, because they are inert.

Shankaracharya, Atma Bodha 28

What is the Mind?

The Bhagavad G�ta 7:4 confirms that the mind is of the subtle material nature. It is one of the eight primary elements (ashta-prakritis): earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and ego. In the next verse of the Bhagavad G�ta 7:5, it is stated that this material nature (mind, intellect, ego) is different from the highest nature of the Self.

The mind is not self-luminous because it is a perceptible object. Patanjali Yoga Sutra 4:19

The mind cannot explain itself, neither can it reveal the Self (pure Consciousness), because the Self transcends the mind and intellect. The Self is always the witness of the mind and senses, it is always the centre in all your activities, but as an instrument the mind can help to establish the Self by logic and reasoning. When the mind is purified, disciplined and stilled, then it becomes a useful instrument; but when in ignorance it falsely identifies with the body and senses, and it becomes a source of suffering and sorrow.

The great ancient sage Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutras, defined the mind as waves (vrttis) on the ocean of Consciousness (citta), and that Yoga (union; unity; samadhi – total absorption) is the stilling of those waves (yogas citta vrtti nirodha). Yoga is the absolute stilling of the mind's activity, and to achieve Yoga is to abide in one's own true nature – the changeless Self – otherwise one identifies with the ego-self and experiences duality and separateness, and is limited by the ever-changing world through the incessant activity of the mind.

The mind is so fine and subtle that it cannot be distinguished from the Consciousness, the indwelling Self. It is transparent and reflects the Consciousness without distortion, and so it is difficult to distinguish mind from the Consciousness. In its true nature, this is what the mind really is – pure mind, filled with the luminous reflection of the pure Consciousness.

The body acts, the senses perceive, and the mind thinks and feels. The mind always functions in conjunction with the sense organs, without which neither forms nor thoughts can appear. Within all these activities the changeless 'I'-principle (the centre of life) or Consciousness is found to be present, silently witnessing and knowing every one of them. I am the witness or knower of the body, the senses, and the mind. Being separate from the body, senses, and mind, I am the witnessing Consciousness in all activities (the ultimate Knower or Perceiver). Thought and feeling must have an object but Consciousness, the witnessing Self, has none, because the T-principle is experience itself, and is beyond subject-object relationship. Consciousness is always your true centre, your Being in all activities; it is the knowingness that is never parted from you; it is the Experiencer who witnesses and knows the transient actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings that flow in and out of the mind.

The Seat of the Mind

The mind is the seat of internal perception, which has many different functions. The principle functions are cognition, volition, and emotion. The understanding mind and intellect are all in the subtle body; they operate through corresponding centres in the physical brain. But the brain is not the mind; it is like a screen on which consciousness is reflected. The outer mind has its seat in the brain, through which it gains its experiences through the senses.

The inner subtle mind pervades throughout the body, but it has three main places in which it resides during the states of waking, deep sleep and dream. In the waking state the mind resides at the eyebrow centre in the ajna chakra. During deep sleep the mind resides in a subtle state in the heart, anahata chakra. In dream it resides in the throat, visuddha chakra. In dreamless sleep there are no thoughts; the distracting world of duality temporarily disappears. As soon as you awaken from deep and dreamless sleep, you, the real Self, continue to exist. You feel you existed even during deep sleep, because consciousness is continuous.

It is in the dreamless sleep state that we get a taste of the nature of absolute bliss. It is only the mind that creates differences, sorrow, duality, and separateness.

The inner mind or feeling nature is located in the heart.

Mind, thoughts and feelings

The mind, coloured by countless latent tendencies, comes to depend on things other than itself owing to interactions with them.

Patanjali Yoga Sutra 4:24

All objects, thoughts and feelings are known through the mind, but when these are absent, the mind cannot be said to exist. That which is existing beyond the mind is Consciousness, the changeless all- witnessing 'I'-principle. Thoughts rise in Consciousness, exist in Consciousness and disappear in Consciousness, beyond the mind. When Consciousness is limited or objectified then it is called thought. Just as waves are made of water, so thoughts are pure Consciousness.

Thoughts and feelings are like pictures projected on the background screen of the Self. To see the Self or Reality, the presence of thoughts and feelings must disappear, so that the mind is still.

We know that when the mind thinks, thoughts are constantly flowing in the mind. Whenever there are thoughts the mind comes into existence, and when there are no thoughts the mind ceases to exist. We also know that when our thoughts are calm, the mind is also calm. When the thoughts are restless the mind is restless. In other words the mind is coloured by the thoughts flowing through it.

This is like the relationship between water and a river. A pool of water is not a river, but when the water is flowing in a continuous stream it becomes a river. Similarly, thought alone is not the mind. It is only when the thoughts are flowing that we can say that the mind exists. We can take this analogy further by saying that when the waters are flowing rapidly (as over rapids) the river is in a restless state. Similarly, as the thoughts become restless with desires, so the mind becomes restless. If the thoughts are negative the mind becomes negative. Just as a cloth dipped in coloured dye takes on the colour in which it is dipped, so does the mind take on the qualities of the thoughts.

Mind, reason, will, ego – The four functions of the mind

The word 'mind' is generally used in Western psychology to signify the operation of the psyche, including memory, understanding, willing and feeling, but in Yoga psychology, there is a significantly deeper and more detailed analysis.

Just as we have five perceiving faculties: hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch to perceive the external gross manifestation of the world, so we also have the subtler functions working from within.

According to Yoga philosophy there are four aspects or functions of the mind – manas, buddhi, ahamkara and citta – together they are termed as antahkarana (antah means internal; karana means instrument), the 'internal instrument', located in the subtle body. The physical body acts under the direction of the antahkarana, establishing contact with the physical senses to relate with the physical world of objects. It is through this internal instrument that you sense, perceive, and reason. In Yoga psychology it is called citta. The interaction of citta with manas, buddhi, and ahamkara collectively form the antahkarana. The Sanskrit words 'manas' and 'citta' do not translate as 'mind'; they have a broader meaning,

(Continues...)

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