Tuesday August 19th, 2025

The Manuals for Gaining Permanent Healing

It is said that Buddha was the greatest doctor. I believe that the work of doctors is to heal our ailments; and it must be that all our ailments always have a cause. I think one of the reasons that Buddha was called the greatest doctor is because he treated people from the root cause of suffering within their minds, and that his treatment was permanent. He saw that the cause of all suffering was in the minds of the people.

I think that “the mind” in this context means how we think—how we actually think day-to-day in relation to the world, others and also ourselves. Some people say that nobody knows how we should live our lives, and that everybody is just doing their best, or that there is no such thing as a right way to think. I have to admit that I also used to believe that. But, actually, it seems that if, sooner or later, most of us keep encountering moments or periods of suffering, then this might be a clue that this kind of thinking—that there are no concrete guidelines on how to conduct ourselves—may actually be one of the contributing factors to our suffering. What makes me say this is that, now, I’ve started to think that in fact there are manuals on how to live, and these manuals are the scriptures containing the teachings of great Beings, such as Buddha. But perhaps only a few have tried to apply the teachings contained in the scriptures long enough and with enough fervor to confirm that they are in fact valid and practical solutions to our everyday struggles—it reminds me of the words of Shri Mahayogi in The Universal Gospel of Yoga: “If you were to meticulously put each one of his teachings into practice, it would surely lead you to the true answer.”

“There is a state that is completely devoid of suffering”—it seems that this is a teaching that all the scriptures have in common, and it is the teaching that is tied to the permanent healing that Buddha was describing; and actually, this must be the ultimate state that human beings are constantly striving for. But only recently am I slowly starting to realize how powerful this statement is. And I think that if we carefully read it, and reflect on it, we can’t help but think about what that ultimate state might be like.

I’m also starting to recognize that there is an error in us—that is, we are looking for the ultimate state that Buddha has reached in all the wrong places, or at things that are outside of that ultimate state. We might ask, “How can we be sure that such a state exists?” Well, if we read carefully, we can recognize that the scriptures show that all the great Beings who have reached the state devoid of suffering, are describing the same thing. No matter the era these great Beings have lived in, or the place where they lived on this earth, or their age—they all describe the same ultimate state.

I think that another way that we can think about the state that is devoid of suffering, and perhaps we may even go further and try to get closer to it, is by reading and trying to understand the teachings of these great Beings. One of the scriptures that contains such teachings, which is helping me in trying to get closer to that ultimate state, is the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.

The Yoga Sutra describes that the mind has three parts; the thought of “I,” the function of discerning using the intellect, and the wanting of when the mind goes out to search for or grasp things. And this combination in the mind of, “I see something, what is it?” and after deciding what it is, the mind then saying, “I want it,” happens all the time, every single day of our lives. But before all these things happen, the mind is somewhat at ease, or in a state of a comfortable dose of relaxation, however, when the senses pick up on some information, the above process happens almost instantly. Furthermore, the mind is not going to feel at ease again until the wanting is fulfilled, which is because the mind knows from previous experience that once the mind grasps what the mind wants, the mind will go back to the state of ease—it simply seeks to recreate the same experience as before. That means that even though the experience doesn’t last forever, the mind doesn’t understand that, or the mind doesn’t want to accept that, so the mind keeps going back again and again into the same cycle, the process of grasping the object in hopes of gaining permanent happiness through having what the mind wants.

This teaching in the Yoga Sutra also points to the fact that the state devoid of suffering—the state of Peace—that the Enlightened Beings have reached, is real. I believe, which the scriptures also state, that at one point we were also in the state devoid of suffering, but just like in the process above, our mind chose to ignore It. So that means, only when we return to the state devoid of suffering again, will we be in that state of Peace, which is the ultimate state. The fact that we are constantly longing to be happy is the proof in and of itself that the ultimate state of Peace exists.

And in the same way that there are various methods we use to get what we desire in order to go back to the state of mind that is at ease, in the teachings of Buddha and Yoga, or those of the Enlightened Beings, there are various methods that we can use to journey back to the state devoid of suffering that Buddha reached. But the difference is, unlike the state that is felt within the mind by grasping the objects in this world, the ultimate state of Peace that is devoid of suffering, which the Enlightened Beings have reached, is permanent. Therefore, I believe that Buddha’s treatment is indeed permanent and eternal.

Ekanta

Tuesday August 5th, 2025

Causing it to be Forgotten:
An Attempt to Tackle the Self Image

In Yoga we learn that it is necessary to have an ideal or a clear goal that we should aim towards. Of course, while this is important, if we haven’t arrived at that point yet, there must be something that we want to improve about ourselves. It might be that we want to improve our interactions with others, or there might be something that really bothers us that we wish wouldn’t anymore. I believe that these situations can improve greatly with one of the tools of Yoga called discrimination.

Now I cannot say that I understand the practice of discrimination, but if we look at the teachings of Yoga, or of the Enlightened Beings, or even of some of their disciples, it seems that their writings contain a lot of analyzing and comparing between that which is Real, Eternal or Never-Changing, and the phenomena of the world and the mind. I think that the application of discrimination is not just about imagination or speculation, but it is simply looking at what the mind thinks and believes, and seeing if those beliefs are based on something real or not.

Lately I’ve been trying to deepen my understanding of how the mind works and the process of discrimination, but I would say that, perhaps, the most progress in understanding these can be made when life’s circumstances push us towards having to face and deal with something urgent within ourselves. In my case, this happened because of experiencing a stream of moments of becoming extremely irritated with one of my friend’s behaviors, to the point where I almost couldn’t control my mind. And what clued me in was that I wasn’t able to stop my mind from complaining and blaming. Fairly recently, one of those moments became so intense that I came home, sat down, and made a decision within myself that I wouldn’t let my mind escape until I got to the bottom of this.

After I began to slowly look at my mind, I realized that I have a strong image of myself being superior to others. Because there was a strong resistance that came from this being challenged, I started to ask myself, “What is it exactly that bothers me and why?” I started to write down what I saw my mind being bothered by and what I thought of myself in comparison to others, like: “I’m smarter than so and so,” or, “since I’m older and since I have more experience than him, I deserve better than that,” or, “since I’m a good friend and a good person, I don’t deserve to be treated a certain way.” This was painful to see. And because there were a lot of expectations that were not being met, and because I started to look into this, my mind was constantly trying to tell me, “we should leave this and forget about it and do something else.” But since I had already decided that I would get to the bottom of this, I calmly continued to inquire into why my mind was thinking this way.

Next, I noticed that in my statements the word “I” kept repeating over and over again, so I thought that this was what I should inquire into. “What is it that I believe I am?” So, I simply started to look at what I believe this “I” to be, and if my beliefs were the same as what the teachings of Yoga say. Now, at this point, what was happening was that my mind, being somewhat familiar intellectually with the teaching of Yoga that says, “We are neither the body, nor the mind, but the Pure Consciousness,” was kicking into its tendency to rush towards a quick conclusion, like this teaching, so that it could escape and not have to face this process anymore.

However, I ignored this and tried to dissect my mind one thought at the time. “I’m smarter than others”—in this case, I believe that I am the knowledge that I’ve accumulated throughout my life. This shows that I basically identify myself with the totality of thoughts and memories that I have. Then I thought that my friend must have his own knowledge in his own unique mind. But then I realized that there is no way to know all his thoughts and there is no way that I would ever know anybody’s entire mind, therefore there is no way I can compare myself to others in this way. But most importantly, I saw how I looked at my friend and myself as being only the thoughts of our minds, and not beings who have an Awareness or a Consciousness. At this point I started to think of the teaching, “The mind and body are always being witnessed, and the Awareness or the Consciousness, which is the Witness, is actually our true Self.” And, “this Consciousness is the same and is One within everybody.” So then, slowly I turned my mind and my focus towards that, trying to sense and feel the Awareness.

Then I recognized that there was a thought that said “I’m older and deserve better than how things turned out.” So, I started to think of the body being older than another body and how this could be a measure of defining one’s existence—but this showed me that I looked at myself only from the aspect of being the physical body, and I considered my friend to be the same. So then, I started to break this down by looking at my body and remembering the anatomy pictures in a doctor’s office with the nervous system, muscles, bones, organs… I thought, “If I were this body, then let’s see which of these parts is really me.” I said, “I’m the hands, but if I were to lose my hands, I still exist, then the same with the legs and same with the lungs…but which lung? Because one can live without one lung also.” I continued in this way. At one point, I thought I must be all the blood in my body, because one cannot exist without the blood, but then I remembered that people have complete blood transfusions but they don’t die or turn into the person that they received the blood from. While doing this, I kept going back to the teaching and turning my attention more and more towards the part of me that is witnessing the body, and I tried to observe more and more the difference between the thoughts of my mind and the Awareness. I wanted to feel this in my friend also, so I tried to imagine that, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. All throughout this process, I kept thinking that I had to stay with this and prove to my mind the facts, otherwise I felt that I would just be lying to myself and my issue would not be resolved.

Then, I remembered the teaching from the Yoga Sutra, that one of the ways the mind experiences activity is through right knowledge. This can happen through direct perception, inference and through reading sacred scriptures. The book states that we can take something as being true by inference, and one of the examples it gives is that if we see smoke, even though we might not see the fire, we can infer that the fire is present. So, I used this teaching and thought that if I am aware of my thoughts and my body that means that the Awareness or the Consciousness must be there in my friend too. I’m not sure why, but this teaching made my mind even more focused, and I felt a strong need to sense or feel this Awareness more and more. It’s like I wanted to become One with it. I’m not sure how much time passed, but during this process I went to take a bath and I remember looking at the wall in front of me and sensing that I shouldn’t even move my eyes because that would break the concentration. I felt that moving or even closing my eyes was a way for the mind to escape.

I kept focusing on the Awareness, and at one moment, I realized that my mind became quiet, and the water had become cold. Then, when I tried to think of my friend again, I realized that the negative thoughts and feelings were gone. In fact I didn’t feel the need to think or do anything anymore. The peace that I felt was enough.

Later, when I tried again to think of my friend, my mind would almost naturally focus on trying to sense the Awareness again and wasn’t caught up much anymore with the image that I previously had had about him. And, I didn’t feel any frustration toward him or my mind anymore.

*

In a way, before this experience, there was a moment when I realized that I was looking for an understanding of the teachings of Yoga within my own mind, meaning, I was believing that if I look deep enough within my memories or in the content of my mind, the answer must be there. But now I’ve gotten a clear confirmation that in order to find peace, the mind has to accept its limitation and give itself up to the Truth, which is actually beyond the mind.

I still cannot claim that I know or understand the practice of Yoga and discrimination from this small experience. But at least what I can say is that this was proof for my mind that the teachings of Yoga, which I believe simply teach the Truth, can transform our mind entirely. And this Truth is nothing more than the facts. Or how things actually are, and not how our minds think or imagine that they are. Yet, it seems like our mind doesn’t know this Truth, our mind’s beliefs are different from It; so I think that we simply have to read the words of those who have experienced the Truth, and make our minds and bodies think and act based on these teachings. I think that if we do this, we are surely bound to experience peace, and eventually, our true Nature, the true Self.

Ekanta

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