The mind is like the sea. It is in a constant state of movement. Underneath the sea is the seabed, which is stable, unmoving, and permanent. This stable, unchanging structure, upon which the mind is moving, is the spirit. Regardless of whatever may be happening in the mind, deep in ourselves, our spiritual being is steady, peaceful, unchanging bliss. Here there is no fear, no doubt, no effort, and no anxiety. This is the eternal peaceful witness who is unaffected by the ups and downs of our emotional life.



When the water is disturbed by waves we cannot see the bottom. Its appearance is distorted by these movements, particles, and objects. These movements are our thoughts and feelings which continuously disturb the peace in the sea of our mind. As long as there are these thoughts and feelings, we cannot even sense the existence of this inner spiritual self. When the waves calm down and there is no movement at all, then we can see the bottom clearly. In the same way when there are no thoughts or feelings we can then experience that deep inner peace of our spiritual self. Meditation is the process through which we calm the waves and bring the thoughts to total silence, so that we can experience our real self who, is usually covered by the incessant waves of thoughts and feelings.

THE MIND IS LIKE A PIECE OF CLOTH

The mind is like a piece of cloth in which the threads are our thoughts, emotions, expectations, habits, needs and desires. Each thread adds its own reality to the mind. If all threads were removed, the mind would be empty. It has no reality of its own. Like any cloth, our personal reality is created by the type of "threads" (thoughts) which make it up.

Meditation and all efforts on the spiritual path are the process by which we remove, one by one, these various threads from these weave of the mind. Gradually, as the years pass the density of the threads is diminished and in this way the cloth becomes more transparent, more porous. This is important, because when this cloth is densely woven, very few experiences can pass through it without getting caught up in it. This means that very few things that happen to us are able to pass, through our mind without triggering off some belief or emotion, which causes that experience to remain in the mind and occupy it to some degree. When one is totally secure, he does not need to hold onto experiences, but can let them pass, so that the next moment he may again be in the present.

We can understand this difference by moving temporarily to another example. If we drag a knife across a piece of metal or stone, which are inflexible, then it will leave a mark, which is, for all practical purposes, permanent.

If we drag the same knife with the same strength over a body of water, the water will react momentarily in the form of outflowing waves. It will then return to its natural state as if nothing had happen. Because of its flexibility, it does not retain the past but returns to its responsiveness to the present stimuli.

Returning to our original example of the cloth, the denser the cloth, the greater the weave of the past, because the threads are basically the imprint of the past onto the mind. Through meditation we gradually remove these threads and the programming of the past. Eventually the weave is quite loose, which means that we are more open to the moment because there are less threads of the past to hide and distort the present. Gradually, after many years of spiritual practice, the mind becomes an open channel and very few experiences can disturb our flowing peace, our inner security, which is now based on our contact with our inner spiritual SELF.

Since few events can now annoy us, we become more open, more loving and experience more unity with all. When the mind has become totally freed from all threads, then we experience the state of enlightenment and become open channels for all the qualities of the divine.