Energy is increased in solitude. If you are filled with the energy of the Self, that energy flows out of you and nourishes everyone in your vicinity. You don’t have to direct this power outwards… This energy will flow of its own accord.
When thoughts arise, stop them from developing by inquiring, “To whom is this thought coming?” as soon as the thought appears. What does it matter if many thoughts keep coming up? Inquire into their origin, or find out who has the thoughts. And sooner or later, the flow of thoughts will stop. This is how self-inquiry should be practiced.
Seal off the entrances and exits to the mind, by not reacting to rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don’t let new ideas, judgements, likes or dislikes enter the mind — and don’t let rising thoughts flourish, or escape your attention. When you have sealed off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging thought as it appears, by asking, ‘Where have you come from?’ Or ‘Who is the person who is having this thought?’
If you can do this continuously, with full attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily, and then disappear. If you can maintain the seige for long enough, a time will come when no more thoughts arise. Or if they do, they will be only fleeting — undistracting images on the periphery of consciousness. In that thought-free state, you will begin to experience yourself as consciousness — not as mind, or body.
However, if you relax your vigilance even for a few seconds and allow new thoughts to escape and develop unchallenged, the seige will be lifted and the mind will regain some or all of its former strength. In the fort of the mind, the occupants, which are the thoughts — need a thinker to pay attention to them, or indulge in them. If the thinker withholds their attention from rising thoughts, or challenges them before they have a chance to develop, the thoughts will all die of starvation. You challenge them by repeatedly asking yourself, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Who is the person who is having these thoughts?’ If the challenge is to be effective, you must make it before the rising thought has had a chance to develop into a stream of thoughts.
Mind is only a collection of thoughts, and the thinker who thinks them. The thinker is the ‘I’ thought — the primal thought which rises from the Self before all others; which identifies with all other thoughts and says ‘I am this body.’ When you have eradicated all thoughts, except for the thinker themself, by ceaseless inquiry, or by refusing to give them any attention — the ‘I’ thought sinks into the heart, and surrenders; leaving behind it only an awareness of consciousness. This surrender will only take place when the ‘I’ thought has ceased to identify with rising thoughts. While there are still stray thoughts which attract or evade your attention, the ‘I’ thought will always be directing its attention outwards, rather than inwards.
The purpose of self-inquiry is to make the ‘I’ thought move inwards, towards the Self. This will happen automatically, as soon as you cease to be interested in any of your rising thoughts. Mind is just a shadow. Attempts to eliminate or control it cannot succeed while there is still a belief that the mind is real, and that it is something that can be controlled by physical or mental activity. Don’t chase your shadow thoughts, and your shadow minds — with mind-control techniques. Instead, go back to the source of the shadow-mind and stay there. When you abide in that place, you will be happy.
When Self-Realization happens, mind is no longer there. However, you do not get Self-Realization by getting rid of the mind. It happens when you understand and know that the mind never existed. It is the recognition of what is real and true. The abandonment of mistaken ideas about the reality and substantiality of the ephemeral shadow you call ‘the mind’. The substratum upon which the false idea of the mind has been superimposed is the Self. When you see the mind, the Self, the underlying substratum, is not seen. A false, but persistent idea, hides it. And coversely, when the Self is seen, there is no mind.
So the question is how to give up the false idea that the mind is real. You do this in the same way that you give up any wrong idea. You simply stop believing in it. If this does not happen spontaneously when you hear that truth from a teacher, keep telling yourself ‘I am not the mind,’ ‘There is no mind.’
Consciousness alone exists. If you generate a firm conviction that this is the truth, eventually this firm conviction will become your own direct experience. If you fail, and give even a little reality to the mind, it will become your own false reality — problems and suffering will follow. Whatever exists is consciousness alone. Keep this in mind and don’t allow yourself to regard anything else as being real.