The purpose of mind process techniques is not just for relaxation.

The purpose is to be more aware. Awareness is the key word. In order to become more aware, you have to end the old ways of remaining aware. Right now the problem is that we are giving too much importance to our thought processes. We do not know anything other than what our thoughts inform us. So most of our understanding comes from the thoughts. And where do the thoughts come from? Most of the thoughts comes from our own personal ego.

That is the purpose of mind process techniques.

The mind process techniques were developed exclusively for making life easier. How can we work with energy and get things done? It is very difficult to work with matter. Matter has very little flexibility, whereas energy is infinitely flexible. Matter follows very, very strict rules or laws of nature. For example, an ice cube is solid matter, but in other forms it becomes steam, snow and water. These are all various stages of the same matter, but when it becomes ice, it loses its flexibility. So we have to get back to the level of energy. On that level, life is infinitely flexible, infinitely easy.

So, we have to make a shift from the material existence to an inner existence.

The laws of inner growth contain a lot more wisdom. Behind every particular form of matter there is wisdom. There is consciousness. Consciousness is pervasive; it exists within even the smallest particle of matter. Matter has the intelligence of remaining fixed in place; it understands how to remain immobile. Energy, on the other hand, exists in a state of consciousness where it can move anywhere. So change must occur within consciousness.

Not only does your brain think, but your genes also think.

The genes know what pattern they will become; all this is stored within the gene. How is it stored? Consciousness! So, we have not understood consciousness. If we understand consciousness one must go deep within oneself and understand non-thought realities or in Sanskrit, avikalpa, which means “thinking without thoughts.”

If one can think without thoughts, then one is a good deal closer to acquiring higher consciousness.

Thought always comes from your ego, from fear, and also one’s longings to get certain things. So, when one goes deep in mind process techniques, one discards these thought patterns. There comes a stage when you are completely quiet, when not even a thought comes into your mind, but there is pure understanding.

So the goal of this program is how to get to that stage–a stage of complete stillness where there is no activity at all. When you have acquired that kind of state, you will find that thoughts are a burden to you. You will see the thoughts as obstacles to your consciousness. The mechanism is very simple. Consciousness is pure, but your ego attaches its thoughts to your consciousness, and these thoughts color your consciousness. If you do not give any credence to these thoughts, they will wither away. Millions of thoughts come into one’s mind. We do not need all of them; they are a waste of time. If you remain quiet and only have a few thoughts that are very productive and rewarding, then you have fulfilled the purpose of life.

One does need thoughts to live in this world. What one does not need is unintelligent thoughts; thoughts that come because of ignorance. This type of thought usually comes when you are disturbed. In this condition one has to be very, very careful to remain quiet. The quieter one can remain, the easier it is for one to receive help from one’s higher self. The ego self cannot accomplish much because it speaks from a level of ignorance.

As you begin to use mind process techniques, you cannot go wrong because you are supported by this avikulpa, the non-thought reality.

All that you need to do is just go deep. This gives you the wisdom, and you cannot go wrong. With this other, very powerful form of intelligence to support your actions, the action that you do will become spontaneously right. There are so many variables involved in a single action that you cannot begin to control these variables.

There is a famous Sufi story. There was a Sufi saint who had a white horse, and the king wanted this white horse. He offered the Sufi any price he might name for the horse. The Sufi rejected the king’s offer. The neighbors considered the saint very stupid, but the saint told them not to judge. A few days later, the horse was missing, and again, the neighbors called the saint stupid, and again the saint told them not to judge. Within a few days, the horse returned, accompanied by several wild horses. Now, the neighbors came and told the saint that it had been good the horses had been lost, and again the saint told them not to judge. The saint’s only son began training the horses, and while training the horses, he became badly injured and lost a leg. Now, the neighbors said how terrible this was, and again the saint told them not to judge. After some time had passed, there was a war, and all the men that were able to fight had to leave their homes to fight the war. The war was going badly, and none of the men that had left were returning home. Now the neighbors came to the saint and said maybe it was good that the saint’s son had lost his leg because now he wouldn’t die in the war, and again the saint told them not to judge. And so, life goes on in this manner.

The mistake we make is that we try to freeze reality at any given moment.

Life is not like that. Reality is volatile, and changes from moment to moment. We want to have something to hold onto, particularly something miserable. The mind is basically miserable, as it always wants to identify with misery. The Sanskrit word duka means misery.

The mind likes least to act upon a desire immediately. There was a woman who wanted to buy a house in two years, and she came and told me that, and I asked her, “Why not buy it now?” She told me it would take her two years to save for the down payment. So, she had frozen her reality. Once she believed it would take two years to buy the house, that attitude became real.

What prevents us from thinking differently about such things is our preconceptions about time and logic, but more particularly, our own negative attitude down to predicting our retirement and the flowers we will have at our funeral. That is an extreme example of how we can freeze our reality.

But it points to the problem. In a life that is structured and guaranteed, there is no adventure. We should live our life in accordance with the infinite possibilities that the particles that make up our being afforded us. So, we must raise the mind to that level of awareness. This is possible through the practice of mind process techniques.