There are seekers who have come to the conclusion that the mind has to be discarded because it interferes with the perception of objective reality and causes problems. Some teachers take a stance against the mind by calling it the Devil’s tool and curse the mind endlessly for its activities. This somewhat lopsided discourse cultivates a feeling among followers that the primary goal of spiritual self-improvement is to “halt” and discard the mind.
Osho, as a Buddhist in disguise, spoke about the state of no-mind all the time. What is no-mind? Just about the same as a no-chair or a no-table. A negative statement like this one leaves the mind with no clue to follow and is completely Buddhist in spirit. One can bounce from it toward only one conclusion: discard the mind.
I have met seekers who chose to focus their attempts on accomplishing the complicated and unrewarding task described above. They had a really hard time trying to do it. After all, they were trying to bring their minds to a stop by means of those very minds! The idea and desire to achieve such a halt find refuge in a seeker’s mind, spinning it into a frenzy of activity for its implementation. The majority of such seekers, mind you, have only a vague idea of what to expect should they reach their goal. It appears to them that the main point is to get rid of the mind, after which things will get sorted out somehow by themselves.
I happened to see people in the final stage of schizophrenia. This stage is characterized by the compete disintegration of personality, lack of desires, and a ruined mind. The point is that these patients did not reach enlightenment. They stayed in a vegetative state and might have starved to death if they were not forced to eat.
It is impossible to silence the mind by means of the mind, because the very desire to silence the mind will maintain its activity. Instead, attempts to achieve “inner silence” or to “stop the internal monologue” can impair one’s mental health. Brief periods of mind’s self-control will cycle with the states of inner chaos that resemble insanity.
More often than not, misinterpreted knowledge, or knowledge that came at a bad time, does more harm than good. To make a stop during a walk, we do not have to cut our legs off. It is sufficient to just have their power supply put on hold. If we adjust the alignment of forces in our essence in a such way that the mind is no longer dominant among the lower bodies, and consciousness becomes crystallized as a separate center, then the mind’s activity will gradually change. We don’t have to feel the same emotion all the time, do we? Equally, if we are in a state of complete non-identification, there is no need for us to think all the time.