Be Blissful
April 2006
By Paramahansa Yogananda
Our true nature is to renounce thoughts every passing moment. Simply allow each thought to rise like a bubble and burst.
Man by his very nature is an unclutched and blissful being. What do we mean by the term unclutched? Let me explain. Every thought that arises in us is like a bubble that forms, rises and dies. Every thought independently rises and dies before the next thought comes up. For example, if you are sitting in a chair and suddenly get up, the moment you have decided to get up, that moment the thought of sitting has left you. If you are working on your computer and decide to shut down the machine, that moment, the thought that you want to work has died. So every thought is unconnected and happens in series, one after the other. One thought has to die before the next one comes up. This is our true nature.
Our true nature is to renounce thoughts every passing moment. By the word renounce, I mean simply allowing each thought to rise like a bubble and burst and allowing the next thought to rise. Our thoughts have only a vertical existence, like rising bubbles.
This process of allowing thoughts to rise and die without trying to connect them is what we mean by being unclutched. As long as this natural process is allowed to happen, things are all right.
But what we do is, we start connecting these thoughts randomly and form a shaft. By doing this, we convert the vertical and unclutched process into a horizontal one with linear connectivity. Here starts the whole problem. As long as each thought is allowed to rise and die, we can take on any amount of load at the physical and mental planes and our consciousness will remain light and blissful. Once we start connecting thoughts, our consciousness suffers and we start feeling burdened. It becomes damaging to our being.
All emotions like worry, lust, discontentment, jealousy, fear, ego and attention, are purely because we find a connection between independent incidents, between independent thoughts, and create a concept for ourselves and start relating with that concept. We create an imaginary shaft with our thoughts and we suffer because of this.
These emotions create all forms of violence, be they religious wars, social conflicts or political unrest. The basis or the root of all forms of violence is our emotions and the basis of our emotions is our habit of creating imaginary shafts of our thoughts and empowering them to work on us.
While creating these shafts, we choose the thoughts depending on whether we want pain or pleasure. We pick pleasant thoughts at random and connect them to form a shaft of pleasure or pick negative thoughts and connect them to form a shaft of pain. We create shafts of pain and pleasure alternately for ourselves, and oscillate between these two emotions. To unclutch from this tendency is the master key to a blissful life.
If you deeply analyze how we connect our thoughts instead of renouncing them, you will understand how we create suffering for ourselves. It is the mind that finds the connection. As such, there is no connection between our thoughts.
We have been trained to feed on words and thoughts. That is why we create these shafts. We feed on words because we operate out of fear or greed all the time. Out of fear or greed, we create connectivity in our thoughts. We are afraid to let go of this process because if we let go, there is nothing else to hold on to. We have never experienced an unclutched state of mind where there is no shaft, only bubble-like thoughts.
In the unclutched state, there is no scope for fear or greed. You will simply BE, that's all. But it becomes difficult to understand that we can exist without this shaft of thoughts. A small story:
An eye specialist was treating a blind man. He assured him, 'Once I operate on your eye, you will have your vision back and you can throw your stick away.'
The blind man became afraid when he heard this. He asked the doctor, 'I understand that I will get my vision, but how can I walk without my stick?'
The man was so used to walking with the stick that he could not understand that by getting his vision he could throw away the stick! In the same way, when the truth is that we can live in an unclutched fashion blissfully, we wonder how. We see clutching thought shafts as inevitable!
We fail to see how mythical the whole thing is. Our mind is a myth. We have empowered it and become a slave to it, that's all. It is nothing but mental slavery. Another small story:
There was an old man in a family who could not be pleased at any cost.
He remained stubborn and grumpy, no matter how much his family tried to keep him in good spirits. His children and grandchildren would visit him and try to cheer him up, but in vain. Suddenly one day, he became very gentle and cheerful. His family was shocked at the sudden transformation. One of his granddaughters asked him courageously, 'Grandpa, how come you have changed so suddenly?' The old man replied, 'All my life, I tried my best to get a contented mind, but never succeeded in getting it. So I have decided to be contented with it now.'
Just see the play of the mind! Your mind can make you or break you. That is why we need to be free from it.
Just watch the thoughts rising in you. Clearly see how each thought rises and dies and the next thought comes up. Observe how you effortlessly connect these thoughts and create ideas and concepts. Watch the play of these concepts upon yourself; you will understand how you create the whole myth. I tell you: Connecting thoughts is the Original Sin.
Living in an unclutched fashion is the way to a blissful living. Just decide that you will not connect any two thoughts, that you will not pass any judgment on any thought or any incident.
When you work in an unclutched fashion, you will find your capacity expanding; you will take on a lot more responsibility without getting stressed; you will not experience mood swings between pain and pleasure; you will be blissful all the time. We are so used to happiness that comes with a reason. This reason is again a shaft that we create with our thoughts. Once you stop creating these shafts, you will be blissful all the time.
Paramahamsa Nithyananda is on a mission to establish the technology of bliss for humanity.
For more information visit www.nithyananda.org