Ah! The tricky mind!

Mind is tricky, and sort of dangerous too - It can create problem of nothing! - This, I realized more clearly today! The mind creates its own set of stupidities around what is correct, creates problem out of it and cribs so as to divert the attention of the sadhaka away from its destruction. I feel we somehow, knowingly/unknowingly fall prey to the fantasies of the mind, every now and then. I say knowingly/unknowingly coz, we are aware that the mind is the cause for bandha/moksha and that the basic prob is with the mind, within us and not outside. Still, it somehow manages to delude us every now and then, the most common being pining to be physically near the Guru - Arunachala or Ramanashram. I too, of course, have fallen prey. Else, I would not have anything to write here! :-)

I was tonight, somehow, feeling like seeing Arunachala, like we do for our kith or kin... as in like the normal ties... It could be because of the weather here, at Bangalore. From past 10 days or so, the weather has been really romantic. It has probably accentuated effect bcoz it happens to mid summer now. I literally felt like "seeing how He would be looking now"... - stupid, I know. But that made me wonder. I dunno what prompted me to think of it, but I suddenly remembered the following line from 'Crumbs...':
"Just as you are able to see the world yourself so also you will be able to see your Self if you earnestly strive to do so, your Self alone being your guide in that quest also."

It struck me so strongly, I started recollecting the types of thoughts I have been having lately - not feeling like going to work 'coz, it was taking about 2/3 of my time for any given day. I would be so busy in work that I would have "no time to meditate or do sadhana" of any kind. I have been having urges to just leave the place and go to Arunachala - wishing I were a boy and I could truly implement it - all kinds of thoughts - just clogging in my mind. As I was recollecting this, I realised that I was actually being victim of the mind again, knowingly or unknowingly - I don't know, thinking that my Guru, His Sannidhi was somewhere 200 KMs far away from me. The best solution, then, to keep the mind in tact, I thought, was to make the Self my Guru, as said in the quote by The One and Only. This way, the mind would stop crying and instead of having multiple thoughts - on Sri Ramana or Arunachala's physical form, to believe and "think" of the Self will actually be ekachinata.

We might think of Arunachala or Sri Ramana. But if different pix appear in mind, it cannot be called ekachintana. Ekachintana is one and one image only. With the mind not having the capacity to have a "picture" of the Self, it aids in eka"chintana" as such. Of course, like Maharshi has always said, it is the Self that is appearing outwards, physically as Sri Ramana and/or Aruncahala. But the mind, I guess, never leaves its idiosyncrasies. It starts attributing properties to even those who are beyond all that. Instead of following the path laid down by whom it considers its Guru, it starts making excuses and cribs that physical proximity blah blah are necessary! Of course, with its previous clinging to worldly objects with names and forms, these kind of "attractions" should be there to even turn to Guru. But, I guess as sadhana progresses, these too should be dropped. Else, the mind will create big problem of nothing and runs whither and thither, making non-sense excuses like these. Why give room for it to wander at all? Indeed! So tricky! Truly, as Janaka said, mind is the theif! The best way, I guess, at this stage is to look as the Self as the Guru, hence always being in His Sannidhi, no matter where you go.... And then, if we consider Guru as external, how can he ever show what is internal to us?? Guru, as Maharshi has always been saying, is the Self. How else could the dull witted mind of fools like me ever think of the Self as the Guru?