THE STOPPED STATE OF MIND

 
In the course of conversation, while some of us were sitting with Shri Baba near the Dhuni at Meherabad, He gave us hints of His spiritual working. He said, "The troubles of the world is due to 'thinking.' I am going to take over this 'thinking' upon myself. As a result my health will be affected. Do not be surprised if I become very weak and some of my mandali may have to administer food and water to me."

When asked as to why he had to undergo this pain and suffering, Baba said, "It is beyond your intellect to understand, yet it must be done; it is essential for my work which will eventually affect the world. It is the duty of God-realized Saliks (who are also conscious of the world) to give an onward push to the subtle universe, but 'The Head' has to prepare the Circle, make the members realize God as well as give an onward push to the gross Universe.

When they — Perfect Masters give such a push, they have to work for it, they have to come down from the 'Nirvikalpa' (Ananda or Eternal Bliss) state, which is located in the human body at the crown of the head, and take their position in the Brahmand, the center position. This point is also called the junction between the Upper Bliss state and the lower human form, from where one can see the the lower parts of the body (equivalent to seeing the chain of past lives and forms one has to pass through before God-realization).

"A duty is imposed on a selected few of these God-realized Ones to come down to the junction and bring up those in the world who are worthy to be taken up, that is, worthy to be God-realized, because of their preparedness.

"But this (preparedness) does not come quickly. It requires ages and ages of suffering and sacrifice, and deep connection with a God-realized Guru. It is, after all these age-long sufferings, that one is deemed worthy of being admitted into a Circle for God-realization.

"God-realization means the absolute destruction of all sanskaras, the stopped state of mind, void of all thinking. This is very, very difficult for, if the mind tries to stop thinking, it goes into the sound sleep state, i.e. unconscious. Even great yogis are unable to attain to this 'stopped state of mind' forever. They can, at the most, stop thinking (vichar) temporarily during meditation, concentration or in samadhi state. But, no sooner do they come down from the samadhi state, their minds begin to work again and the huge store of the past undestroyed sanskaras gets additional quantity added through this transitory stopping of the mind.

"Hafiz has compared the body with a pot, smoke with the soul and the sanskaras to a huge stone placed on top of the pot. Can the smoke ever succeed in removing and throwing up the stone? For this, a sage must come and lift it."