Mind is one of the most significant thing in life, but only as a servant, not as a master.

 

The moment the mind becomes your master, then the problems arise; then it displaces your heart, displaces your being, takes over the whole posession of you. Then rather than following your orders, it starts ordering you.

I am not saying to destroy the mind. It is the most evolved phenomenon in existence. I am saying beware that the servant does not become the master. Remember your being comes first, your heart comes second, your mind comes third – that is the balanced personality of an authentic human being.

Mind is logic… immensely useful, and in the marketplace you cannot exist without the mind. And I have never said that you should not use your mind in the marketplace – you should use it. But you should use it, you should not be used by it. And the difference is great….

It is mind which has given you all technology, all science, but because the mind has given so much, it has claimed to be the master of your being. That’s where the mischief begins; it has completely closed the doors of your heart.

Heart is not useful, it has no purpose to fulfill. It is just like a roseflower. The mind can give you bread, but the mind cannot give you joy. It cannot make you rejoice in life. It is very serious, it cannot even tolerate laughter. And a life without laughter has fallen below human standards. It has become subhuman because it is only man, in the whole existence, who is capable of laughing.

Laughter indicates consciousness and its highest growth. Animals cannot laugh, trees cannot laugh, and the people who remain encaged in the mind – the saints, the scientists, the so-called great leaders – they cannot laugh either. They are all too serious, and seriousness is a disease. It is the cancer of your soul; it is destructive.

And because we are in the hands of the mind, all its creativity has gone in the service of destruction; people are dying from starvation, and the mind is trying to pile up more nuclear weapons. People are hungry, and the mind is trying to reach to the moon.

Mind is absolutely without any compassion. For compassion, for love, for joy, for laughter… a heart, freed from the imprisonment of mind, is needed.

Heart has a higher value. It is not of any use in the marketplace, because the marketplace is not your temple; the marketplace is not your life’s meaning. The marketplace is the lowest of all the activities of human beings.

Jesus is right when he says, “Man cannot live by bread alone.” But mind can only provide bread.

You can survive, but survival is not life. Life needs something more – a dance, a song, a joy.

Hence I want you to put everything in its right place: The heart should be listened to first if there is any kind of conflict between
mind and heart. In any conflict between love and logic, then logic cannot be decisive, love has to be decisive. Logic cannot give you any juice – it is dry. It is good for calculations; it is good for mathematics and good for scientific technology. But it is not good for human relationships, not good for the growth of your inner potential.

Above your heart is your being. Just as mind is logic and the heart is love, being is meditation. Being is to know yourself. And by knowing yourself, to know the very meaning of existence.

Knowing the being, is bringing a light into the darkness of your inner world; and unless you are enlightened inside, all the light outside is of no use. Within you, there is just darkness, abysmal darkness,unconsciousness, and all your actions are going to arise out of thatdarkness, out of that blindness.

So when I say anything against mind, don’t misunderstand me. I am not against mind, and I don’t want you to destroy it.

I want you to become an orchestra. The same musical instruments can create a hell of a noise if you don’t know how to create a symphony, how to create a synthesis, how to put things in their right place.

Being should be your ultimate… there is nothing beyond it – it is part of God within you. It will give you that which neither mind can give, nor the heart can give: It will give you silence. It will give you peace. It will give you serenity. It will give you blissfulness,
and finally, a sense of being immortal.

Knowing being, death becomes a fiction and life takes wings into eternity. A man who is unaware of his own being cannot be said to be really alive. He may be a useful mechanism, a robot….

Through meditation, search your being, your isness, your existence. Through love, through your heart, share your blissfulness – that’s what love is all about: Sharing your blissfulness, sharing your joy, sharing your dance, sharing your ecstasy.

Mind has its own function in the marketplace , but when you come home, your mind should not continue chattering. Just as you take off your business coat, your hat, your shoes, you should say to the mind, “Now be quiet, this is not your world.” This is not being against the mind. In fact, this is giving rest to the mind.

In the home, with your wife, with your husband, with your children, with your parents, with your friends, there is no need for the mind. The need is for an overflowing heart. Unless there is love overflowing in a house, it never becomes a home; it remains a house. And if in the home you can find a few moments for meditation, for experiencing your own being, it raises the home to the highest peak of being a temple.

The same house… for the mind is only a house; for the heart it becomes a home; for the being it becomes a temple. The house remains the same; you go through the changes – your vision changes, your dimension changes, your way of understanding and looking at things changes. And a house that is not all three, is incomplete, is poor.

A man that is not all three, in deep harmony – the mind serving the heart, the heart serving the being, and the being belonging to the intelligence spread all over existence…. People have called it God; I love to call it godliness. There is nothing above it.

Osho,
The Razors Edge

Source: Bodhi Sarango