7 November 2014

Gurudev, you mentioned that the trick is to cut the connection between thought and me. What makes us feel that the thought is mine?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

In Sanskrit this is called tadatma (identification).
When you are watching a movie you are so identified with the movie that when something happens to the hero or heroine, you start crying. Doesn’t it happen?
It used to happen in villages, when the hero was being attacked by the villain, the entire audience would throw slippers and stones on the screen. Many times the owners of the theatre would have to come and announce, 'This is a movie, please don’t throw slippers and stones on screen because it will get spoilt'.

This is what identification is: the mind identifies so much with the scenery.
Same way, when you are watching a movie and if you are intelligent, you know it’s just a movie. You don’t throw stones at the television because your hero is being hurt by the villain.
In the same manner, your emotions and thoughts come and go. It is your strong association with the thoughts that puts you in a cage. Identification is that cage. Knowing that all these are just thoughts and detaching from that identification is liberation.
We all do this to some extent; everybody does it. You don’t act on every thought that you have. If you consider all thoughts as your own, you will go mad. But we consider many of our thoughts as our own. We consider ourselves to be the thought. It is only when you sit and go into meditation that you start becoming a witness and realize that these are just passing thoughts. We are able to disassociate ourselves from most of our thoughts; they just become like a passing cloud.

Of course, when such a cloud comes it also stirs some emotions. Thoughts and emotions are linked. When a bad thought comes, it stirs a bad emotion. When you are a witness the emotion also stays for a minute and then it vanishes. But if you identify with it then it stays longer. It can’t stay forever but it stays for longer, it drags the whole thing a little longer.