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XIII. TRANSMUTATION
OF THE MIND (2)
As we were sitting in meditation in the courtyard a short while ago, a question arose in my mind: Why all this effort? Why devote so much time? What for? There is only one objective — to set the mind in order. There are many problems. Indeed, in our everyday world, there are innumerable problems and we are here merely chasing the mind! What do we hope to gain, after all? Suddenly, it became clear to me that unsteadiness, lack of equanimity, constituted our biggest problem. A mother complained to me of her son's skittishness. A restless child becomes a problem to the mother causes her endless worry. Naturally, she wants her child to be cured of that defect. But restlessness is not always bad. Some kind of movement is also a necessity. If the tree remains perfectly stationary, if the leaves do not move at all, the traveller would be subjected to the torture of intolerable heat. The leaves flutter as the wind blows and it gives the traveller a pleasant feeling of coolness. Similarly, a stilled mind becomes a problem. Silence is good but if a child does not start speaking, its parents begin to worry about it, "The child is two years old and yet cannot speak!" They begin a round of visits to the doctor.
Constant movement has its own use. If the body does not move, it becomes a problem. If a finger or a foot does not move, a man is rightly worried. “Has it been paralysed?", he wonders. One woman spiritual practitioner went into dcep meditation. At the end of her meditation period, her hands and feet would not disentangle People sitting near her got worried at her immobility. Actually, there was nothing to worry about. The point is that movement, constant movement, is necessary; it has its own utility. But there is a point beyond which it must not go. Restlessness, in the sense of constant movement, is necessary to a certain extent, but if it exceeds its bounds, it becomes harmful. We are trying here to lessen the mind's restlessness in order to find our fulfilment. A restless mind cannot achieve anything. Our goal is mind-transformation. We want to change the mind. As long as fickleness continues, there can be no transformation. Something is said. You are told to do or not to do something. You hear the words, but the mind is so restless, so much caught up in the vibrations of its own thought, as to completely ignore the direction. No theory can be put into practice if the mind remains unsteady. No problem can be resolved as long as we
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