What is our true nature? It seems like if we have two different natures: a deep nature, which is the Self, and a kind of nature, which is our history, personality, karmic involvements, which is there also. How to deal between the two, without creating new knots, and still go to freedom?
Well, there are no two natures. Bhagavad-Gita says in one place, "Svabhava adyatma utchate." [ 3 ] Svabhava means nature. Nature is adyatma, "Our nature is our spiritual entity." The rest is all garments. Now, this is not your nature, these are your clothes. Because you can be wearing any clothes. You are wearing this today; to-morrow you can be wearing a sari, you might be wearing a pant also. But is that your nature? That's not your nature.
Maybe it is reflecting?
You can be changing the clothes, even the next moment you can keep going and change.
I always chose the same type of clothes!
Whatever, but then is that your nature? That's a garment. That is not you. Then nature is you in you. Your nature is you in you. Your nature is not this. So, apart from the Soul, everything is a garment.
But the garment is taking the whole place in the consciousness.
Correct. But therefore, those who are concerned about the dress only, how do you consider them? Somebody bothers about the elegance, the external beauty etc. etc. What do you think of them? It's all superficial, it's all extravagance. Right. So, if somebody deals with the garments as if it was his or her personality, you certainly know that that person doesn't know what he or she is. He or she goes by his or her external appearance. Your body, your mind, your intelligence, your emotions are all "your" clothes. They are not you. They are all garments, because even if you change and come with a sari, you are not going to change. You are going to remain the same. Similarly, these clothes, various sheaths, physical and mental, they are all clothes for the Soul and they are not the nature. Your mind is not your nature, because your mind will depend upon in what condition you are and in what situation you are; that's how the mind takes its form.
So the mind is conditioned by all those factors. You know, that's why I have got the concept of "psychology of mind." Nobody knows this "psychology of mind" because we identify ourselves so much with the mind that we think that we are the mind. If the mind is sad, you are sad, if mind is happy, you are happy. You never say that "my mind is sad, but I am happy!" Will you ever say that? Or, "my mind is happy, but I am sad!" You will never say it, it will never occur and happen, because we identify ourselves so much with the mind. So again, even if we identify, the two are not one.
"Psychology of mind" is a concept of which I speak very often and which is quite intriguing. Nobody will understand what "psychology of mind" is because psychology pertains to mind only. Mind itself is psychology. But we say also "mob psychology," we say "child psychology," we say "women's psychology." You know what that means? When we say "child psychology" it means that a person is behaving uncharacteristically and that the child is like a child, she behaves like a child, then you say it is "child psychology." That means she is not, anatomically, that, but she behaves that way. What does "mob psychology" mean? That individuals behave uncharacteristically to what they are: if you segregate all those from the mob, they will not be trouble mongers. But when they get in a mob, they become violent. So they behave uncharacteristically when they come into mob. "Woman's psychology" means that you as a woman behave uncharacteristically to the core of your being and therefore it is called "woman psychology." Like "mob psychology," you and me get into the mob and we behave uncharacteristically. So "woman psychology" means that you behave uncharacteristically. Not being ladies, you behave as ladies, because essentially you are not a lady. I'm essentially not a man.
Essentially nobody is a child. Nobody is man. Nobody is nobody that way. But still we behave. That's why you say "man psychology, woman psychology, child psychology, student psychology." What does "student psychology" mean? The mob behaves uncharacteristically as students, which they are not, individually. They are not like that, but getting into the clan of students they will behave like that. So, there is also "mind psychology." Many times you say, "Oh why did I react that way? Why did I say that way? Why did I think that way?" That means, the mind has thought in a way you did not want to think. It is the mind that has reacted uncharacteristically to you. That is why you say, "Oh, I was stupid at that time! Oh, how stupid my mind is!"
It means that you are intelligent but the mind is stupid. What does that mean? That means that you are noble, that you are magnanimous. The mind is mean. So the mind also has its psychology: it behaves depending upon situations; depending upon the conditions, it behaves differently. A simple example: when you are with your children, you move as a mother; when you are moving with your friends, you move as a friend; when you move with your teachers, you move as a student, as a disciple; and when you move with your students, you move as a teacher.
Now, tell me, are you essentially teacher, or student, or wife, or sister, or brother, or friend? You are no one. You are no one. Depending on the situation, your mind moulds and you become mother, you become sister, you become friend, you become teacher, you become student. Actually you are none of them. You behave with your children as a mother, and again you are uncharacteristically to you. Behaving as a teacher depends on conditions and again you're uncharacteristically behaving as a teacher; you are not teacher, still you behave as a teacher.
Our mind is like mercury; our mind, like air or water, takes various forms and shapes. Water has no shape but when it is in this glass you say it has this shape, when it is in a bottle it has that shape. Water doesn't have any shape. Fire doesn't have any shape. But water takes the shape of the container. Similarly, our mind doesn't have shape or form. It is no woman's mind, no man's mind, no child's mind, no human mind, no animal mind. It depends upon the manifestation, which is like a container. Therefore it is not the essential nature. Now, suppose there is a balloon of the form of an elephant. I blow it up and it takes the form of elephant. Will you say that air is like an elephant? Do you mean to say that air has the shape of elephant? You won't. Suppose the balloon is square, will you say that air is square? You won't.
Similarly, the mind takes various forms and shapes; you don't have shape, you don't have form, you don't have class, creed, gender, status, stature, so on and so forth. Essentially you don't have anything of that. All that is because of your garments. So your mind is not your nature because you are not your mind. So there are not two natures. There is only one nature; "Svabhavam adyatma utchate" [ 4 ] is the definition in the Bhagavad-Gita. Svabhavam means nature. And what is it: adyatma. Your "episoular" aspect is you.
What do you mean by "episoular?"
"Episoular" means "pertaining to the Soul," or "the center of the Soul." Because in English there is a wrong word for adyatma, it is called "spriritualism." Adhyatmic is derived from Sanskrit, adhy is a prefix, adhyatmic is adhy-atmic, and it means "pertaining to the Soul." All that is pertaining to the Soul is spiritual. That which pertains to the Soul is your nature. Because the Soul is neominal. So anything that pertains to the Soul is your nature. There are no mutations, you don't change, the Soul doesn't change. The changelessness, immutability, indestructibleness are all the natures of the Soul; that is your nature. You have no class, no creed, no gender, no status, no stature; that's what you are.
Now, understand what you are. What are you in sleep? When you are in deep sleep, are you man or woman? Are you sister or brother? Son or daughter, father or mother? Are you emperor or beggar? The emperor is no emperor; the beggar is no beggar in sleep. The sleep is the great levelizer. It's a great levelizer, because you cast aside all your garments in sleep and that is why you are nobody's nobody. You are nobody to anybody. You are nobody to everybody. A mother is not a mother in sleep. And a simple thing: they say the mother takes care of the child. The child is the life of the mother. They say this. But then how can the mother afford to leave the child on the side and go to sleep carelessly? The mother is absolutely careless: when the child is sleeping on the side and she goes to sleep, does she bother about the child, as to what will happen? Anything can happen.
But how does the mother go to sleep? Our adyatma says that there is only one mother and one father: the Divinity. So the mother knows that there is a Mother to take care of the child and that Mother will take care and just say the child goes to sleep in the lap. So the mother who goes to sleep on the bed, by the side of the child, doesn't have to bother about the child. Because, in sleep, the mother is no mother, the father is no father. There is a beautiful scripture in the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad, "Atra pita apita bhavati, mata amat" [ 5 ] - "In sleep, the father becomes non-father, the mother becomes non-mother, the brute becomes non-brute, the saint becomes non-saint." And therefore your nature is an entity without class, without creed, without gender, without status, without stature. That is what you are. That is your nature.
[ 3 ] Bhagavad-Gita VIII, 3.
[ 4 ] Bhagavad-Gita VIII, 3.
[ 5 ] Bhrad Aranyaka Upanishad, IV, 3, 22.
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