Flexibility in Mind and Spirituality

by **Akindra** Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:23 pm

Hope you like this extract - Deepak is on a plane with nothing to do and then his mental guide began to talk to him - it was a reminder to me of the middle path.......

From Deepak Chopra's book "Life After Death"

Now, what is the proper way to relate to your mind? the voice asked. Should you always do what it says? Clearly not, for we have all kinds of thoughts that are irrelevant or fantastic. Should we ignore what it says? No again, because the mind gives us all the desires upon which we build our lives. There is no single way to relate to the mind. You can't take a stance that will always work. When people decide arbitarily to be optimists, they may miscalculate when it comes to serious crises, evildoing, wars, personal conflicts etc. If they decide arbitarily to be pessimists, they will miss many opportunities for joy, fulfillment, hope and faith.

My mental guide showed me this, and I was intrigued. IT would appear that being spiritual is one stance that works, yet there are situations where even being spiritual - tolerant, loving, accepting and detached from materialism - won't work at all. A parent can't simply accept and love a child addicted to cocaine, for example; active intervention is called for. A thousand other examples come to mind. Love won't defeat torturers; tolerance won't stop the excesses of fanatics. A person must find an infinitely flexible way to relate to the mind; otherwise something gets lost. The most precious gift of the mind - it's total freedom - is the source of our creativity.

Now, my mental guide said, look at the world. Isn't it the same as the mind? The same unpredictability prevails, and therefore you cannot take a fixed attitude toward the world that works. People who are congenitally optimistic about the future are as shortsighted as people who are congenitally pessimistic. Go one step further. Karma is also unpredictable, and it too cannot be approached single-mindedly. To fight your karma is just as frustrating as accepting your karma.

At this point the sun had set and the plane cabin was empty and dark. I could see the last band of blue-orange light circling the horizon. My mental guide wasn't an accident or a daydream. I realised that for a long time I'd wanted to know how it all works. The answer is that mind, the world, and Karma are the same thing, perfect mirrors of one another. Their complexity is impossible to fathom. Their infinite connections can never be mapped out, and even if they could be, the next tick of the clock will bring a new, equally infinite set of possibilities.