Mata Amrtananda mayi

GO BEYOND MIND

During the woman’s meditations, a woman  had been having various experiences, and she wanted to know how to take them: 

D(Devotee) : “Amma, what sort of attitude and understanding should one have to the various experiences one undergoes during meditation? How much does one’s mental attitude affect how we experience these? 

For instance, at one time it might be a joyous experience of motherly love and, at another time, something very impersonal, like forces of nature, like little flashes of lightning and strong gusts of wind acting upon one’s being… 

What role does the Guru play in all of this? Why do many people go insane or become delusional and egoistic and only a few safely make it to the Goal?”

Amma : Such experiences arise out of innocence. And that although one can take encouragement from such experiences, that they should not be given much importance.

“Because of one’s innocence one may have such experiences; one may feel motherly love, see divine lights or feel a cool breeze… But you should go beyond all such experiences,  “You are on the path to realizing your oneness with God, with the Self. 

While travelling on a path, we see many things around us. But if we stop to see these things and forget our goal, we may never reach the goal.”

All experiences are at the level of the mind and that the goal of spiritual life is to go beyond the mind. Ultimately such experiences are much like dreams and, as such, they should only be given the same importance as a dream.

“The real important thing is the control we have over our mind in all situations”. 

“If someone becomes angry at us, we should not react and become angry also. We should reflect, ‘Whom am I becoming angry at?’ In such situations we should remember that it is all the Atma, the Supreme Self. We should think, ‘The consciousness that is within me is within that person also. Can consciousness become angry? 

And if all is one, to whom can it express its anger?’ We should give more importance to the Self and not the body.”

“When we eat sugar, we experience the sweetness. But we still are different from the sugar. We shouldn’t be an experiencer, we should become That, we should become the sugar, we should become the sweetness.”.