annihilating the mind - adams

There was once a great king who heard of a Sage who was traveling through the kingdom, a famous Sage. This Sage was known for his great compassion, his great love, and his great humility. He didn't speak much. The king called his wise man to him and said,

"Quick, go and find the Sage and bring him here, so that he can give us a talk on spirituality."

The wise man obeyed. He inquired as to the whereabouts of the Sage and finally located him. He related to the Sage what the king had said. The Sage said,

"I'm not interested."

He beseeched the Sage again and again to come to the kingdom. The king would give him bags of gold, fine meals, beautiful women. The Sage said,

"Sorry, not interested."

Finally the wise man left the Sage and returned to the king and reported the story, what happened. The king became furious. He said,

"I want you to go back and use whatever means you can to bring the Sage here. Otherwise I'll cut off your head and use it as a hockey puck."

The wise man said,

"Yes, OK,"

and again left. He searched for the Sage. He found him, fell at his feet admonished,

"Master, please come and give a talk on spirituality for the king, or he will cut off my head and use it as a hockey puck."

The Sage, having a great compassion, a great love, a great humility, said,

"OK, I will come. Make all the arrangements. I will give a discourse on silence."

The wise man was so happy, he returned to the king and told what had happened. The king became ecstatic, joyful. He ran to the royal ballroom, had his servants put out 300 chairs in preparation for the Sage, invited the entire council, all of the ministers, their families. Hundreds of people attended. The Sage appeared at the promised time. He sat down on a chair, turned his head slowly to the right, slowly to the left, looked at everyone, got up, and he left, and left the palace and the kingdom. The king became furious.

"This is an insult,"

he shouted. The wise man came over, and he said,

"How can he do this to me? He has insulted me in front of all of my friends. Why was he so disrespectful?"

The wise man said,

"Sire, don't you get the point? He said he was going to come and give us a discourse on silence. What better way to give a discourse on silence than to be silent?"

{…}

This story is the truth about us also. It shows us that in silence there is power, in silence there is the highest truth, in silence there is pure awareness. When we talk too much, when we get involved in too much discourse with people, when we talk too much about philosophical teachings, spirituality, it loses the essence of the teaching. When you hear about your self, you hear me telling you, you are pure awareness, boundless space, sat-chit-ananda, you are the Self, when you've practiced observation, observing, being the witness, when you've practiced vichara, self-inquiry, and you've done this for many years, it is then time to be silent. It is then time to keep quiet, not to allow your thoughts to go any further. When I say to keep silence, I do not mean just keeping quiet, when your mind keeps thinking, thinking, thinking, I am referring to quieting the mind. When there is no longer any noise in your mind, when the mind becomes quiescent, the reality appears by itself.

Why do you want to experience the reality? Because you have read in books, teachers have told you, the reality is infinite peace and wisdom, the reality is pure knowledge, the reality is immortality, and everyone wants this. So we practice all forms of sadhana, we go and see various teachers, we read many books. Now what all these things should lead to is the silence. After a few years it should not lead to further books, it should not lead to further running around the world, looking for Masters who can give you the secret potion, so that you can become self-realized. It means to be quiet, to cause the mind to become totally still, not to get involved in talking, talking, talking, about nonsense, to talk very little. Notice as you keep still this way, how thoughts enter your mind, how they begin to tell you things about yourself, about the speaker, about the room. The thoughts tell you everything that keeps you back from achieving your realization.

Thoughts can do you no good, no matter what kind of thoughts they are. They can only take you so far, confuse you. You have to see this about yourself. You have to be totally honest with yourself, see where you are coming from, examine your feelings, your emotions. Again, what is going through your mind. Most people cannot sit in the silence even for a second. The mind waves begin to move. As long as your mind keeps feeding you information, you can never really awaken, for what you call the mind is merely a bundle of thoughts about the past, and about the future and about the present. That's all the mind is. The mind keeps you earthbound. That is its job, to make you part of this earth, to attach you to person, place and thing. Therefore the wise person, from the very beginning, begins to do things to keep the mind still, to quiet the mind. What is the highest thing you can possibly do to quiet the mind? And the answer is nothing.

As long as you're doing something you're using the mind. Therefore the highest teaching is, do nothing. When you learn to do nothing, the mind will stop thinking all by itself, but when you do something, the mind will accumulate more knowledge, of things that you are doing, and become ever stronger, and stronger and stronger. Remember you are not trying to acquire more knowledge, and add on to the knowledge you already have. You want to empty yourself totally, absolutely and completely, of all so called knowledge. You're afraid to do this, for you think you will become a vegetable. It's hard to imagine a person with no mind. But, when you begin to realize your mind is only an accumulation of thoughts, thoughts from past lives, thoughts from this life, only thoughts, then you begin to see that the mind has to be totally transcended and transmuted. And those of you who have been practicing sadhana for many years, have come to the point where now you can do nothing.

You no longer have to meditate. You no longer have to practice atma-vichara. You no longer have to practice being the witness, vipassana meditation. Those things are no longer necessary. They have taken you to a certain point, and here you are. You now have absolutely nothing to do.

You are free.

Silence

–– Robert Adams, T166: Annihilating The Mind