Vedant, New Mind, New Life by Acharya Prashant : Quick Notes
Table of Contents
What are Upanishads? The extensive significance of Upanishads
Mantras and scriptures come at the beginning of Vedas, in which the worship of all deities is included. And there is nothing particularly spiritual about this.
Then come the priests who explain what kinds of rituals and rules should be followed in sacrifices and all kinds of ceremonies.
This is followed by the arrival of aaranyak(related to forest), and the questions now seems to shift from the external world to the internal one. The discussion in the Upanishads has now completely turned inward and it also says that truth transcends nature (satya to prakriti se pare hai)
Chapter 1: What is Mind?
a) Mind: A Thousand Passions, A Tranquility
b) The Mind is Wandering in Ten Places
c) As You Are, So Is Your World
This idea is deeply rooted in Advaita Vedanta, "As your mind is, so is your world."
How is your mind?
Your mind is a collection of subjects(thoughts) that you constantly think about, revisit.
What kind of thoughts reside in your mind?
The ego does not allow anything to settle in the mind just like that. It only accepts the
thoughts that your ego believes will serve you, will benifit you in one way or the other and relieve you of pain, restlessness and incompletedness. It is driven by self-interest. That which is not in your self-interest will neither be seen nor heard by you.
Even if a selfish desire is fulfilled, relief may seem to come, but true relief will never be attained this way. So, one continues to try experiment after experiment, hoping that eventually, something or someone will appear who will give them true relief.
Hence the thoughts and desires within you become your world.
-Your own inner impurities (mental distortions, emotions, desires, or mental states) manifest before you in the form of the world
Now, Desires can move in two directions. The natural direction of desires is that they keep expanding. The universe is infinite, the subjects are infinite, so keep experimenting one after another, keep trying, eventually, something will come along that will give you relief. This is the natural direction of desire, craving, and self-interest.
Then there is the direction of love, in which the focus shifts to the subject that alleviates our pain, the one that dissolves desires. It is so powerful that if you don't keep it in your mind, a void, an emptiness, a vacuum is created. To fill that, you bring the entire universe into your mind, but even then, the mind continues to demand more. Its power is such that either you hold onto that one thing in your mind, or you bring the entire universe into your mind. Even if you bring the whole universe into your mind, the mind will still yearn for more and more.
When the true essence is missing from life, many other things have to fill the void. The more things there are in a person's life, the more it indicates the lack of the real thing in their life, and the greater the absence of that real thing.