Maharishi Patanjali says:

The modifications of the mind are five. They can be either a source of anguish or of non-anguish. They are right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory.

Mind can be either the source of bondage or the source of freedom. It depends how the mind is used. Right use of the mind becomes meditation, wrong use of the mind becomes madness.

All the techniques, all the methods, all the paths of Yoga, are really deeply concerned with only one problem: how to use the mind. Rightly used, mind comes to a point where it becomes no-mind. Wrongly used, mind comes to a point where it is a chaos, many voices antagonistic to each other - contradictory, confusing, insane.

These five modifications of the mind, this totality of the mind, can lead you into deep anguish, into misery. If you use the mind rightly, its functioning can lead you into non-misery. That word non-misery is very significant. Patanjali doesn’t say that it will lead you into bliss, because bliss is your intrinsic nature. You are born with it, you have it already. That’s why Patanjali simply says either misery or non-misery.

Buddha says the same. That’s all that methods can do. Once you are in the state of non-misery, bliss starts flowing from your inner being. You open the windows and the rays of the sun enter. By opening the windows you are not creating the sun. The sun was already there. Your window can become a passage, but it cannot create the rays; the rays are there.

Right knowledge

If this center of prama, of right knowledge, starts functioning in you, you will become a sage. You can assert, but you cannot prove. How can you prove? If you are in love, how can you prove that you are in love? You can simply assert. You have pain in your leg; how can you prove that you have pain? You simply assert that, “I have pain.” You know somewhere inside. That knowing is enough. Meditation leads to this modification.

When there is no need to prove, mind is not needed because mind is a logical instrument. You need it every moment. You have to think, find out what is wrong and what is right. Every moment there are choices and alternatives. When right knowledge functions you can drop the mind because now choosing has no meaning. You move choicelessly. Whatsoever is right is revealed to you.

A sage is one who never chooses. He never chooses good against bad. He simply moves towards the direction of good, just like sunflowers. When the sun is in the east, the flower moves to the east. It never chooses. When the sun moves to the west, the flower moves to the west. It simply moves with the sun. Wherever is good he moves simply. He has nothing to choose, he simply moves. If you say, “This is bad,” he will say, “Okay, it may be bad but this is how I move, this is how my being flows.”

Once a person has come to be centered in himself, when a person has achieved meditation, once a person has become silent and the mind has been dropped then he is beyond our morality, beyond tradition. He is beyond our limitations, and we should not judge.

Wrong knowledge

If your center of wrong knowledge is functioning, whatsoever you do, whatsoever you choose, whatsoever you decide will be wrong. There are people who feel very unfortunate because whatsoever they do goes wrong. They try not to do wrong but that’s not going to help; the center has to be changed. Their minds function in a wrong way. With all their good wishes, they are helpless.

If the wrong center is functioning then nothing can be done. This modification of the mind Patanjali calls viparyaya, perversion. You interpret everything in such a way it becomes a perversion.

All over the world people have done that. In India we say, “If you bathe in the Ganges your sins will dissolve.” It was a beautiful concept in itself. It shows that sin is not something very deep; it is just like dust on you. So don’t get too much obsessed by it, don’t feel guilty; it is just dust, and you remain pure inside. Just bathing in the Ganges can help. Don’t become as obsessed with sin as Christianity has become.

But how have we interpreted it? We say, “Then it is okay. Go on committing sin.” And after a while, when you feel now you have committed many, go give a chance to the Ganges to purify; then come back and commit again.” This is the center of perversion.

Imagination

Mind has the faculty to imagine. Paintings, art, dance, music, everything that is beautiful has come through the imagination. But everything that is ugly has also come through the imagination.

Hitler imagined a world of supermen. So he destroyed. Just utopian imagination - that just by destroying the weak, the ugly, the physically crippled you will have a beautiful world. But the very destruction is the most ugly thing possible in the world - the very destruction. He had a utopian imagination. And for his imaginative world, he tried to destroy this world completely. His imagination has gone mad.

Imagination can give you poetry and painting and art, and imagination can give you madness also. It depends how you use it. All the great scientific discoveries have been through imagination - people who could imagine the impossible.

If you imagine you are beautiful, a certain beauty will start happening to your body. Whenever a man says to a woman, “You are beautiful,” the woman changes immediately. Every woman, every man who is loved becomes more beautiful. A person who is not loved becomes ugly. If imagination is not there you shrink.

Whole generations, whole ages, whole countries have been changed through imagination. Look at the Hindus and the Sikhs of Punjab - they belong to the same race. Five hundred years before all were Hindus. And then a different type of race, a military race, was born.

Nanak said: “You are a different type of race. You are unconquerable.” Once that imagination started to work in the Punjab, within five hundred years a new race, totally different from Punjabi Hindus, has come into being. In India, no one is braver than they; on the whole earth Sikhs have no comparison. They can fight fearlessly. What has happened? Their imagination has created a milieu around them. They feel that just by being Sikhs they are different. Imagination can make a brave man out of you, it can make you a coward.

When people meditate many things happen through their imagination. They start seeing lights, colors, visions, talking to god himself or moving with Jesus, dancing with Krishna. A meditator has to remember that these are functions of the imagination. Don’t think that they are real. Only the witnessing consciousness is real; nothing else is real.

Whatsoever happens, enjoy it. It is beautiful to dance with Krishna; nothing is wrong in it. Dance! Enjoy it! But remember continuously that this is imagination, a beautiful dream. Don’t be lost in it. If you are lost then imagination has become dangerous. Many religious people move in imagination and waste their lives.

Sleep

Sleep means your outward-moving consciousness has gone deep into itself. Conscious activity has stopped. Mind is not functioning. If you are dreaming then it is not sleep. You are just in the middle; you have left the waking and you have not entered sleep.

Sleep means a totally contentless state - no activity, no movement in the mind. Mind has completely been absorbed, relaxed. This sleep is beautiful; it is life-giving. And if you know how to use it, this sleep can become samadhi. Because samadhi and sleep are not very different. Only one difference is there -in samadhi you will be aware. In sleep you are in the same blissful state but you are not aware.

Patanjali says natural sleep is good for the body’s health, and if you can become alert in sleep it can become a spiritual phenomenon. Something inside goes on being aware. The body falls into sleep, the mind falls into sleep, but the witnessing remains. Then sleep becomes the ultimate ecstasy.

Memory

If memory is misused it creates confusion. You may remember something but you cannot be certain whether it happened that way or not. Your memory is not reliable. You may add many things, you may delete many things, you may do many things to it. You are imagining; you are creating your past, you are not true to it. You drop all that was ugly, all that was sad, all that was painful; all that was beautiful you continue. All that was a support to your ego you remember, and all that was not a support you forget. Everybody has a great storehouse of dropped memories.

To be truly honest with one’s own memories one will have to pass through arduous effort. You have to be nakedly true, you have to know what you really think about your father, about your mother, about your brother, about your sister. Whatsoever you have in the past, don’t change it, don’t polish it; let it be as it is. Then you will not be a hypocrite. You will be real, true, sincere - you will become authentic.

When you become authentic you become like a rock; nothing can create confusion. And then clarity of mind is achieved. That clarity can lead you towards meditation; that clarity can become the basic ground - to grow beyond.

More on http://kaalchakra0.tripod.com By Shri Rohit Anand Ji