Mind Undressed by Anandmurti Gurumaa

Author:Anandmurti Gurumaa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ego, anandmurti gurumaa, going beyond mind, layers of mind, faculties of mind, know your prakriti, maladies of mind, manage your mind, states of mind
Publisher: Anandmurti Gurumaa

4.

STATES OF THE MIND

The mind abides in one of the five states:

Agitated (kshipta),

Highly agitated (vikshipta),

Dull (moodha),

Focussed or integrated (ekagra) and

Nirodhah (state of total absorption of the mind).

Thus the mind keeps oscillating between these states.

Kshipta is a state of mental agitation. Anything that creates a storm of turbulence in your mind – then be it anger, excitement or depression – the resultant upheaval, the turmoil is known as the kshipta state of the mind. Neither being with friends nor watching any movie or television or indeed anything else cheers up the person. And the peculiar aspect of this state is that you don’t know why you are disturbed.

It is a state of agitation wherein the mind feels irritated, upset, angry or anxious for no apparent rhyme or reason. And there is a great deal of emotional imbalance in this state. For example, anger will escalate, irritability will increase, tearfulness will rise, or one becomes vitriolic with a biting, caustic speech. Tamoguna increases, and the person becomes more self-centred and harsh. Thus he feels embittered upon hearing other people's good news. For example, on receiving an invitation for someone’s celebratory party, such a person may cantankerously remark, ‘how will the other fellow’s happiness be of any benefit to me, so why should I go?’ Or if someone asks him to visit an ailing relative in the hospital he will retort bitterly, ‘my own knees are painful, why the hell should I take the trouble to see him?’

Irritated about everything and anything, many rajasic folk abide in such a kshipta state of mind. Whereas some people abide in the kshipta state for a while but for most of the time, their mind is in vikshipta state. This is a state of highly escalated agitation. And in contrast to kshipta, there is an identifiable cause for the vikshipta state. But in the context of yoga, vikshipta is that state wherein a person is disturbed by his lack of vairagya. When will my mind become dispassionate towards the sensory world, how will my mind ever become concentrated, when will my mind dive inwards – this angst disconcerts, troubles his mind. Thus yoga defines vikshipta spiritually as the state wherein the mind is trying to become sattvaguni but despite efforts it keeps on being immersed in rajo or tamoguna and thus the resultant turmoil of not being able to become sattvaguni makes the mind highly agitated. The individual is pining for augmentation of sattvaguna, hankering for spiritual evolution, restless in wanting to divert the mind from the external world to the inner realm – this is also referred to as vikshepa.

Generically speaking though, vikshipta is the state of escalated frustration resulting from running after something or the other – when one is constantly fretting about either getting something or worried about losing what one already possesses; when the mind repeatedly keeps worrying about something or the other. Such that even before sowing the seed, the person is worried about reaping the crop. So the child may

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