Question: What is an integrated mind?
Acharya Prashant: The integrated individual. The title itself says education integration. The words integration or disintegration were mentioned by you not less than six or eight times, do you recall? Let’s begin with that. What is meant by integration and why should we say education and integration. Is the relationship between these two?
L: Yes
AP: Please tell.
L: When you concentrate in and then try to share your knowledge and try to improve the other person then you get integrated with the other person.
AP: In the very first paragraph the author talks of unspeakable sorrow. Unspeakable sorrow. What is this unspeakable sorrow? All sorrow, all suffering is the suffering of being divided. Let us look at ourselves or let us look at our students, and a very obvious truth of this will come to us. What does my student say? I wanted another department and I did not get it. I wanted an NIT or an IIT, I did not get it. The mind is divided between this and that, and simply put, this is this integration.
To be integrated is to be one, and to be disintegrated is to be divided. Not completely in, not completely out. Not completely here, not completely there. Not joyful, not hopeless either. And the division is not merely two-fold. It’s not as if one’s mind is divided in two. The mind is divided into 20,000 parts. Each part running in a separate direction. And that is conflict, that is violence that is what the speaker refers to as the unspeakable sorrow. Because from the divided mind of the individual results divided relationships, divided societies, ultimately a divided world. And everything is just bits and pieces. That’s the pain, right?
Suppose you are sitting here, and you’re not completely here. Do you understand the agony of that, the sheer sorrow of that? Why should I move from that platform to this place, so that I can be, fully with you? And that alone can be peaceful. That is integration. Are we getting this? Being here, yet not being here, would be sorrow.
Now, what is education doing? Is it helping me as a teacher and the student be whole, be complete, be totally here? Or, is my education sending parts of me somewhere else.
Let me give you an example. Study today so that you may get a result tomorrow. What is being done to the mind of the students? Study today, so that you may get good results tomorrow. What is being done to the mind of the students? Please tell me. Where is the student? The student is here. And where are we sending his mind?
Listeners: In Future.
AP: What is important, that, there, in the future, the results. This is Disintegration. Unknowingly the teacher has disintegrated the student. Not that the teacher has bad intentions. He’s a teacher. Yet because the teacher has not taken care to deeply inquire, what has resulted in is that you have broken the child, or parents.
What is the child? The child is, the student is, what he or she is. And then there is comparison. The comparison that begins at home, is institutionalized by the university. How? These are the toppers. Now, what else do the parents do? “The neighbor in so good at studying, you are not.” The University takes that forward in a more polished way.
This is what is being said is, that
Whenever you influence the mind to become something that it is not, then the mind will become disintegrated. The mind has a certain purity of its own, and whenever an external influence will force the mind to become something else, the mind could be of the teacher or of the student or anybody. Whenever an external influence will force the mind to become something else, the mind will simply get disintegrated. The mind cannot go totally away from being what it is. So that essence, that core is always retained. At the same time there is something that is pulling the mind away. All you get is fractures.
It’s like I’m sitting on this chair. I can’t really move because this chair is my natural seat. But Mummy and Papa and Chacha and teachers and society and media all are intent on taking me somewhere else, and they do not want to take me to one particular destination. What do they want? Media wants to take me here, Mumma wants to take me there, one teacher wants to take me there (pointing at different directions), and another teacher wants to take me there. The fact of my being is, I can’t really leave my seat, because this is my natural seat. I cannot be taken away from here.
But I am being pulled in all directions. What will happen to me? What will happen to the mind? Do you understand what will happen to the mind? It will be tortured and then cut into pieces. One piece is lying there, one piece is lying there. This is disintegration – division, cutting, fragmentation.
A Mind upon which any influence is acting is not a composed, it’s not an integrated mind. It’s a divided mind.
Sometimes going here, sometimes going there. Sometimes thinking of him, sometimes thinking of that. Sometimes under this influence, next hour under that influence; far removed from its center. This kind of mind suffers, it suffers and is also violent. So, it gives suffering to others as well. Firstly it suffers, secondly, it becomes a reason for others suffering.
Are we getting this?
-Excerpts from a ‘Shabd-Yoga’ session. Edited for clarity
Watch the session: Acharya Prashant: What is an integrated mind?
Connect to Acharya Prashant:
1. Advait Learning Camps (ALC): Advait Learning Camps are monthly 4-day retreats under the guidance of Acharya Prashant in the Himalayas. To participate in the camps, Contact Sh. Anshu Sharma: +91-8376055661 or Sh. Kundan Singh: +91-9999102998
2. Course in Realization (CIR): Course in Realization is a seven-day scripture based learning program led by Acharya Prashant. To join, either physically or online, contact Sh. Apaar: +91-9818591240
3. Month of AwakeninG (MAG): Attend Satsangs from Home! MAG is an online series of discourses on handpicked topics by Acharya Prashant on practical and relevant topics like Love, Fear, Achievement etc. To join the online discourses, contact: Sushri Anoushka Jain: +91-9818585917
4. Meet the Master (MTM): Meet the Master is an opportunity to meet and seek detailed guidance from Acharya Prashant, either in person or online. Contact: Sushri Anoushka Jain: +91-9818585917
5. Blessings from Beyond: Weekends with Acharya Prashant brings you the unique opportunity for a 2 day 2 night stay with the Master every month. It involves two mystical days of dynamic activities, explorations of the self, sports, meditative reading, deep reflections, midnight walks and more.
Contact Ms. Anu Batra:+91-9555554772
Venue: Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India.
6. A Day With Master: A day with the Master’ is a rare opportunity for genuine seekers from all across the world to spend 12 hours with the Master at the Advait BodhSthal Ashram – Greater Noida.
To register yourself, to spend the day with the Master, send in your request at [email protected]
or,
call at: +91-9555554772
7. Triyog: Daily morning 2 hour Yoga feast for your total well-being. Comprising of Hatha Yog, Bhakti Yog, and Gyan Yog.
Contact: Shri Kundan Singh: +91-9999102998
Venue: Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India.
To join any of the above programs, send your specified application to:
Books by the Speaker are available at:
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/Acharya-Prashant
Flipkart: https://goo.gl/fS0zHf
Advertisements Share this:
