Yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, answers a question on how to

control your thoughts during meditation. He banishes several

myths about controlling your thoughts and explores how we

can take the mind from being a compulsive process to an entirely conscious

process.

Question: Namaskaram. During the practice of kriyas, there is

always this challenge of thoughts entering my mind. I’m trying

hard to keep them away and focus on the kriya, but this doesn’t

really work. How to control your thoughts during meditation or

kriyas?

Sadhguru: You are focusing hard and trying to banish the thoughts,

and they are not going away. This is the nature of the mind, but it

looks like you are very prejudiced against your mind. When you are

doing your kriya or your meditation, you don’t mind if your kidneys

or your lungs are functioning or if your heart is beating. You don’t

mind all the other processes in the body – only your brain should

not function! The notion that if you do something spiritual, your

brain should stop working is simply wrong.

Your thoughts are just the smells – either fragrance or stink – of

the stu䌀砆 that you carry within you. Nothing new arises. If you don’t

let the stu䌀砆 that you have gathered go into your brain, your brain

will work in phenomenal ways. It can do things that you have not

5kShares

imagined possible. But it is full of your own rubbish right now –

that is the struggle; that is why you want it to stop. Instead of the

brain being the crown of your life, it has become the garbage bin of

your life. Physically, it is the crown. In the symbolism of yoga,

Sahasrar is a lotus with one thousand petals – “one thousand” not

as a literal number, but as something innumerable. If your brain

was rooted in the existential process, innumerable possibilities

would open up. But right now, your brain is only rooted in the

mental process.

Now you may say, “Sadhguru, that’s exactly what I am saying –

how to control thoughts?” No, that is not what you are saying. You

don’t want your thoughts to interfere with your illusory idea of

enlightenment. Illusory because enlightenment is not something

that you cause. You don’t cause light, but you see light. When the

sun rises in the morning, you do not cause the light, but you are

able to see it if your eyes are open. If you cause light – let’s say with

a torch or by any other means – you always have to keep it up, and

there will always be the fear that it will go out.

The di䌀砆erence between education and enlightenment is just this –

you can educate yourself with 1, 10, or 1000 books, but still you will

run out of material at some point. Enlightenment means you did

not educate yourself with books – you are simply there; it is an

endless process. Is there something particular that an enlightened

person knows that you do not know? No. Is there something

particular that an enlightened person does not know? No. I am not

playing with words. This is the nature of existence.

An Ine䆩馚cient Mind

What is happening in your liver and kidneys is a lot more complex

than the thoughts that you generate. If the activity of your organs

does not disturb you, why do your thoughts disturb you? Because

you think you are your thoughts. When you think, you don’t see it

as “my thoughts” – you say, “I think so.” Because you are deeply

identi䌀ed with your thought process, it is bothering you. You are

not identi䌀ed with your kidneys unless you have a kidney problem.

If they function normally, most people do not even feel if they have

kidneys or not. Kidneys are a device – they are functioning so

e䌀┉ciently we can forget about them.

You are always conscious of that which does not function

e䌀┉ciently. You know, I am making a statement about your brain. If

it was functioning smoothly, you would not notice your brain, like

you do not notice your kidneys or liver. If you were not identi䌀ed

The notion that ifyou do something

spiritual, your brainshould stop working

is simply wrong.

with it, you would not notice it. If you are identi䌀ed with it, it is a

big deal. You are not your thought. You are identi䌀ed with

something that you are not. Once you are identi䌀ed with something

that you are not, you cannot stop the mental process – it will just

go on endlessly. It is like when you have eaten bad food, gas will

develop. You cannot stop it with a wine cork. You just have to stop

eating bad food.

The bad food for you is right now,

you believe yourself to be things

that you are not. The moment you

identify yourself with your body,

your thoughts, your emotions, and

many other things around you, the

thought process will be endless.

People think that is how the mind

is. That is not how mind is, or

rather, that it is not how it is

supposed to be. If you constantly

had a stomach ache, you would

think that is how the stomach is.

The Human Possibility

The brain is much more sensitive than other organs. All other

organs have speci䌀c functions, but the brain has a few speci䌀c

functions, and the rest is left open. This is the problem of being

human. Any other creature has speci䌀c goals, nothing more. They

must eat well, grow well, reproduce well, and die one day –

everything is set. Only a human being is wondering, “Why am I

here? What is the nature of my life? Where do I come from? Where

do I go?” All these questions only come up when you are human.

The di䌀砆erence between a human being and any other creature is

that in human beings, the cerebral cortex and other parts of the

brain have 䌀owered.

You complain about a new possibility that has arisen within you, a

possibility that an ape, a monkey, or any other creature does not

have. Do not treat a possibility as a problem. It is not a problem – it

is a possibility that you can sit here and think of something that is

1000 miles away, 1000 years ago, 1000 years later, or whatever else.

It has become a problem for a lot of people because they have never

looked at the user manual.

First stop giving the brain bad food – feed it with Truth, not

untruth. We are in the hands of Truth. We don’t have Truth in our

hands. We have a complex bunch of lies in our hands. If you keep

down all the things that you believe, all the things that you have

made up, you will see, if you sit here, your mind could be simply

empty. If it is empty, what is the use? The use is it can re䌀ect the

whole cosmos. Otherwise, it is quite comic. This is the choice – you

can make your mind into a comical place or a cosmic space. For it to

become a cosmic space, you must keep all the lies down – then

Truth will 䌀ourish by its own nature. The absence of falsehood is

Truth.

Only a fool will talk about what Truth is. One who knows will only

talk around it, because you cannot talk about it. You can only de䌀ne

and describe that which has some kind of substance, that which has

measurable parameters, or boundaries. If something has no

boundaries and no parameters, you cannot talk about it. The whole

work is about clearing the mess you have created, not about

establishing Truth. There is no need to establish Truth. It is in the

lap of Truth that all of us exist.

I will not ask you to confess what thoughts you are getting while

doing your kriya. Do not be concerned about your thoughts. Above

all, do not try to stop them. Let them happen like the activity of

your kidneys is happening. Not everything in your kidneys is clean.

Not everything in your brain is clean either – what is your problem?

Good Thoughts and Bad Thoughts

Do not discriminate between good and bad thoughts. There are no

How Can the Mind Be Quiet?

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good and bad thoughts – there are just thoughts. Your thoughts

depend upon what kind of garbage you have – that kind of smell

will emanate. Today’s smell depends on yesterday’s garbage. It

depends on what you threw into the bin. If you watched a movie

yesterday or something else happened, today, that will come back to

you again. Do not judge your thoughts – it is just rubbish. First of

all, they are not even real. A thought means that it is not real. The

largest part of who you are is unconscious right now. You are

making things up all the time. If you want to know the nature of

creation and the Creator, it is important that you do not make

things up, which is what you are trying to do right now. Trying to

make things up is a hopeless method.

If you try to maintain a continuous stream of thoughts while doing

your kriya, suddenly, they will not come. Suddenly, you will get

constipated in the head. Do not bother about your thoughts or about

how to control your thoughts. Depending upon what is there inside

today, thoughts will 䌀ow. There is no signi䌀cance or consequence

to this. You just need to do the kriya – do not do the thoughts.

Whether you try to remove them or to have continuous thoughts or

108 sacred thoughts during meditation, you are still trying to do the

thoughts. The kidneys will do their own thing; the liver will do its

own thing; the brain will do its own thing; you do the kriya – that is

all.

Editor’s Note: Sadhguru o뗢ers Isha Kriya, a free, online guided meditation

that helps bring health and wellbeing. Daily practice of this simple yet

e뗢ective 12-minute process can transform one’s life.