Questioner: Acharya Ji, how to attain stillness of the mind?
Acharya Prashant: ‘Stilling the mind’, or ‘stopping the mind’ are very popular and lucrative catchphrases. There is a small problem. The problem is – for the mind, everything is a verb. Everything is a verb. Everything denotes action. So when the mind says, “Stop”, even that means – ‘do’ the act of stopping.
Mind only knows movement. Mind does not know anything called ‘stillness’, or ‘stopping’. So, we may find it tempting to talk of stopping the mind, but the moment you say, “Stop the mind”, you have started a new action.
Do you get this?
The moment you say, “Stop the mind”, you have just started a new action. Now it doesn’t matter whether you want to make the mind ‘do’ something, or whether you want to make the mind come to a pause, essentially you are doing the same thing. You are ‘doing’. Essentially you are doing the same thing, which is that you are ‘doing’.
In making the mind run to a particular place, you are ‘doing’ the running. In making the mind stop, you are ‘doing’ the stopping. So, this stopping is no stopping. And hence all attempts of stopping the mind, or stilling the mind, are necessarily going to go waste.
