The more activity we are into in the waking state, all that we do, what happens? It is creating heat in the system, in the brain. Brain activity creates so much buzz, and wisdom is what brings calm, like moonlight. Mind becomes very pleasant, calm, and serene.
The mind is connected with the moon, isn't it? If someone goes crazy, what do we call them? Lunatic, cuckoo.
But the moon also has some very pleasant qualities. Cooling yet bright. So, your mind should aim to be cool, calm, and bright.
Do you notice when you sit in meditation what is happening? The mind cools down, and when the mind cools down, only then you are too cool. You can't be cool unless your mind is cool.
For some other reason, we get caught up when the mind starts boiling, the head starts boiling. Three things help us cool down: wisdom, practice, and dispassion.
When the mind is cool, the entropy is low. There is orderliness, and then there is happiness. Orderliness comes with low entropy. That means efficiency and pleasantness. The mind becomes very serene.
Serenity can bring you wisdom, and wisdom brings serenity.
Then, with dispassion, you see that everything in the world is just going to remain here. Nothing is going to be with you forever. Everything will just drop you one day, or you drop everything.
You know, your clothes have more shelf life than your body does. When you realize this, then what is it that you're hankering on? What is it that you are holding on to? This is making your entropy up? When you look at this, then you say, "Okay, cool.”
We must know there is a big intelligence. The intelligence in our brain, we think, is the only intelligence. No, there is a bigger intelligence in the universe, and your intelligence is just a little reflection of it.
So when you connect to the bigger intelligence, the spirit which is already there, then your mind becomes cool, the entropy goes down. The brain cools, and you feel a sense of pleasantness, and your whole system recuperates. Good company will also do that. Your food and company impact your intellect. Time and space impact your mind.
Your mind is impacted by time. In the morning, how you feel is different from how you feel in the afternoon. And, the way you feel in the afternoon is different from how you feel in the evening. How you feel in winter is different from how you feel in summer, autumn, and spring. So time impacts the mind.
Your mind is connected to time and space. In a different place, you feel different. The moment you go to a place where meditation is happening, wisdom is being discussed, the place brings you different energy shifts. It impacts the mind. Similarly, intellect is affected by company and food.
What is the whole essence of spirituality? Lower the entropy. Then cool down. In layman's words, cool down.
When your heart is cool, and your mind is cool, you have taken a big leap, and nobody can take your smile away.
Now, it may not be possible to stay like that all the time. Some disaster happens, or some bad news comes, you get disturbed, and that’s okay. You are not a stone. Those things do affect you.
With wisdom, you know these things can affect you, but they don't impact you very much. It comes, and it just goes.
Small wind blows, nothing happens. No tree falls. When the big wind comes, some trees will fall. But some trees, which are very strongly rooted, simply sway and swing a little. They don't fall. Even though you feel it, you shake, but you don't completely collapse. And what helps you to do that? Your wisdom, your dispassion, and your practice.
Someone says, “Oh, I can't meditate at all.” Because you have so much attachment to something from the past. You're clinging on to it. You're thinking about your breakup. You had a breakup with somebody, and you're only thinking about them. Though you are sitting in meditation, your mind is still boiling; it is not going away. In time, you get over that.
Then there is the impact of the company you keep. In American English, negative company is called a toxic relationship. The company that creates toxicity is because you have moved away from your center. Then you feel so toxic, and when you are toxic, your brain is boiling, boiling, boiling.
Here is where dispassion helps. Everything is going to go. The body is going to go. Everything is going to end. Remembering “Let me be still and get back to myself” helps cultivate dispassion.
So much research has been done on even chanting. Chanting affects the brain. It brings stability. It increases the gray matter in the brain.
Listening to singing, singing, all that will help. Good company, dispassion, practice, wisdom.
I know it is not easy, but one must aim for that.
It's not easy to cool the mind and feel that moonlike presence, soothing and calm at all times. But when you have that on your to-do list, I tell you, you will succeed. If not every day, even a few days of these practices are good enough.
When you have a negative thought, hug the thought and say, “Come sit to my left side. I will deal with you later.”
Don't fight with your negative thoughts. Don't fight with them. It's senseless to fight with the thoughts. You are fighting with yourself.
This is what is happening. You are engaged in a dialogue with yourself.
You are sitting in meditation, your own dialogue, what you want to tell someone when you get out of meditation, how you should convince somebody, how you should change this, and blah blah blah blah blah.
Think, “Oh, what a nice, beautiful negative thought.” Embrace it tightly. You'll see it will evaporate.
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Editor’s note:
Meditation becomes easier when the nervous system begins to settle. The Art of Living Part 1 Course teaches SKY Breath Meditation, a powerful breathing technique designed to help reduce stress, quiet mental noise, and cultivate a more peaceful, grounded state of mind.
