Devalue Your Mind, Recognize Its Limited and Transitory Nature
How the brawl at the post office turned out to be a harbinger of lessons
Devalue Your Mind, Recognize Its Limited and Transitory Nature — AI Image by Author (Bing).
I sweat on this hot July Monday. The post office is chaos: old ladies fight in line, and a man yells at the desk. The air is thick with stress and heat.
I shut my eyes, seeking peace. Adi Shankara’s words echo: “The mind must be seen and cut down before it can rise.” How true, I think, as I watch the storm in me.
I start to do what Advaita Vedanta says: I watch my mind. I see my hate of the heat, my anger at the mess, my wish to leave. I know these thoughts are just short-lived mind tricks. Shankara says I must “cut down” these feelings, not think they are me.
Deep breath
I take a deep breath, making space between me and these thoughts. It’s hard, but I’m doing what Shankara taught: seeing how small and brief the mind is.
I look at the scene around me again, but this time with different eyes. I see how everyone’s mind is projecting a sense of separation and duality. “Me” versus “them,” “right” versus “wrong,” “pleasant” versus “unpleasant.” This is exactly what Shankara talks about: the mind’s tendency to create division.
In this moment of awareness, I feel these illusory barriers dissolving. I’m seeing through the mind’s conditioning and limitations called Lakshanas, as Advaita Vedanta teaches. It’s a taste of what Shankara calls “the elevation of the mind to its true state.”
I’m not denying the practical reality of the situation. The heat is real, the chaos is tangible. But beyond all this, I perceive a deeper peace, a sense of freedom that doesn’t depend on external circumstances. It’s a direct experience of what Shankara describes as “unity with ultimate reality.”
Keep watching
As I wait, I keep watching without getting caught up. I see my anger melt, and I start to feel for all of us, stuck in our mind’s make-believe.
When it’s my turn, I’m shocked at how calm I am. I smile at the stressed clerk, feeling close to her. That smile holds the oneness that Advaita Vedanta talks about.
Walking out, the heat hits me. But now I take it in stride, as part of it all. I feel fresh inside from watching and “cutting down” my mind.
Peace and freedom
This Monday taught me Shankara’s lessons for real. I saw how watching and “cutting down” the mind’s tricks can bring more peace and freedom.
As I head home, I vow to keep this up. I know it won’t always be easy. I’ll get lost in my mind’s games again. But now I’ve felt what Shankara means by “lifting the mind to its true state.”
May each day, boring or hard, be a chance to do this. As Advaita Vedanta says, this daily work can bring deep peace, more freedom, and at last, oneness with all.
Even a hot post office can be a place to grow, to lift the mind past its limits and touch, for a moment, the truth Shankara spoke of.
And…so?
Shankara in Advaita Vedanta doesn’t belittle the mind but invites us to “devalue” our identification with its transitory nature. By observing how it projects separation, we recognize its limits. Thus, we glimpse the immutable nature of the Self. By elevating the mind beyond its projections, while appreciating its utility, we experience a deeper peace and unity with ultimate reality. It’s a path that uses the mind as a bridge to what transcends it, guiding us to our true essence. The mind thus becomes an instrument of self-transcendence.
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