Menstruation and Mind || Acharya Prashant, Vedant Mahotsav at IIT Delhi (2022)

Questioner (Q): Namaste Acharya Ji! Firstly, thank you so much! You have helped me in ways which I cannot explain. So, I am basically a student. I am 26, and I am a student of Philosophy. I completed my M. Phil sometime back.

My problem is that I have a lot of fear and anxiety, and generally I am able to manage it. I indulge myself in spiritual videos. From the last two years, I've been following Osho, and I've been listening to you also for the past 10 months.

I indulge in journaling or self-talk, and I am able to manage it. But there are certain times, wherein it just aggravates in a way, wherein, I am not able to control it. Specifically, before and during the time of menstruation, I am not able to handle it. And it gets so difficult that I am not able to work also - not even day-to-day activities, I don't feel like doing anything. So, in that case, what should I do?

Acharya Prashant (AP): See, you've kind of opened a window into your own situation. You know it is physical, right? It's just that at the time of menstruation, it becomes very visibly obvious that the mental thing is from a physical place. At other times, the physical origins remain hidden. So one is led to believe as if the thoughts, feelings, and fears and anxieties are just of the mind.

The thing is that they are never of the mind. The reason is very simple - the mind is two things concurrently - the body and the pure Self ( you could call as the Truth or the Ātma). The mind is a sandwich. The bodily component is definitely invariably present right since birth, but whether or not the mind will be occupied by or devoted to the pure Self is a choice.