The mind is that in which everything arises and falls because of the influence of the world.

Do you have any thought that does not arise because of the world? Can you think of anything that is not been given to you by the world?

All thoughts are influences of the world.

You must have gone through a phase of life in which at one point in time you thought of becoming a policeman, and at another time you wanted to be a researcher, then an engineer, then an entrepreneur. Would you have wanted to become a policeman, had you never seen a policeman?

But when you are a child, and you watch a movie, and in the movie there is that fantastic cop who is chasing all the robbers and criminals and bashing them up. And what do you want to become then? A police inspector. This thought is arising due to the influence of the world, and what is the world? A river that is constantly changing.

Now next moment, the policeman is gone in the river. The policeman is gone, the river has flown. And what do we have now? An engineer comes along.

So your neighbor’s child, who was five years elder to you, cleared through IIT exams, and he was also deputed to US post qualification and everybody felt so proud. It was the talk of the town. And upon seeing that, you take that as an example and you say that “No, no, no, policemen are lousy, I want to become an engineer”.

Would you want to become an engineer, had engineers not been known to earn well and be respectable?

Now in the river, the policeman went, then the engineer went and now who has come?

"The Entrepreneur". And now you want to become the entrepreneur. And rest assured, something else is coming after the entrepreneur and something else after that and something else after that.

Your thoughts are not at all your own; your thoughts arise from the influence of the world, and the world is so changeable. It is a flux. Nothing stable or constant about it.

So, we are in a very tricky situation. We do not even know what we are going to want next, because we do not know what is going to come flowing in the river next. Anything may come as an influence upon us and we will start thinking about it. We don’t even know it is quite a helpless situation.

And because we are not attentive enough, we will think that these are my thoughts and my desires.

We hardly have anything within us that is really ours.

Things happen in our surroundings, things happen in our environment and we get influenced by them. We internalize the influences upon us and we think that these are our original thoughts, that these are our internal desires and that we must chase these desires.

No thought is original and no desire is internal. They are all influences upon the mind coming from the world.

So what does the wise man do? How does he live?

The wise man is the one, who has an identity independent of the world. Who has something which remains untouched by the flow & who has the capacity to maintain a centre - a core that is not influenced by the world.

Thoughts will change from time to time, but the power to realize cannot change.

That is called your capacity to understand. That is not the part of the flow because it can understand the flow. But you can understand the flow only if you stand a little separate from the flow.

It is like standing on the banks of a river, by the sides of a river. And the river is flowing in front of you, and you are watching the river flow. And you can see, water is coming and water is going.

But you are not going away along with the water. What are you doing? You are just standing still and watching and knowing that this is the nature of the world, of the mind and of thoughts - coming and going, rising and falling.

So the one who wants to live freely in the world, the one who wants to play in the river, without being consumed by the river, must ensure that he is not living his life based on thoughts.

There are two ways to live:

- Live as per your thinking.

- Live in realization.

The intelligent man lives in realization, and realization and thinking are very-very different things.

Thinking comes from the past, thinking comes from the world.

Realization comes from deep attention to the present. It is the end of suffering.

So there is the police man, then there is an engineer, then there is the entrepreneur and then there is something else. So the life will come to an end but the stream will keep flowing.

You will die; the thoughts will not die. The stream will keep flowing.

So, what to do? Well! Not much, not much to do really.

Pay attention, see what is happening.

And when you see what is happening, you become free from the happening.

And that will allow independent action to take place. That will allow really free movement in life. And that is joy. That is when you really come alive. That is the ecstasy of living, flying in open sky.

Next time whenever you feel like going this way or that way, just ask yourself,

“Is it not another thought given to me by the world?”

And if the answer is ‘yes’. Then you have realized something.

Author: Unknown

P.S.: This was received as a random message in social groups. We couldn't trace the author on internet.