Only the touch of Truth can heal the mind
Questioner: What is psychotherapy? Can psychotherapy heal the mind?
Acharya Prashant: You see, what is psychotherapy? If I look directly at it, all it means is healing the mind. What is the mind? How do you know of it? Is it something alien to you? Do you really require to read books to know the mind? Do you require definitions and terminologies? Do you really require stuff that has been certified by experts? Is the mind an object outside of you, not available to you? You said psychotherapy, we are talking about the psyche. Is not the psyche something that we anyway live with and live in, please? Whenever you are observing, are you not observing the mind itself?
So, first of all, one hardly needs any specialized knowledge in this field. if you require knowledge to see the obvious, then such knowledge is a ploy against seeing the obvious. It is not a helper; it is rather a deterrent.
Now, when we look at the mind and we said the mind is always available for observation because whatever you are seeing is nothing but the mind in action. When you look at the mind what do you see? We are talking of now healing the psyche; psychotherapy. So, there is the mind that is always available, how to heal it? To heal something, first of all, you need to know its disorder, its disease. And the mind is hardly ever in ease, it’s always restless. Is the restlessness not evident when you look at the mind? Don’t you see yourself and everybody else running after something? Don’t you see how our goalposts keep shifting? Don’t you see how we choose one target after the other? Don’t you see how we all are just the same in that?
The objects we chase may keep varying but the tendency to chase remains the same, or does it not? Surely the mind wants something which it is not getting. Now, the mind can keep trying one object after the other and it still does not reach the destination, and this is evident when you observe.
You see people achieving this, achieving that. Everything that is available to the human imagination can become an object of achievement. And it would have surely been already achieved by somebody, if not then it would be something that would be one day achieved by somebody. But even those who have run around a lot and have laid their hands on all the imaginable objects are still found running further.
So, what is the disease of the mind? What is the mind trying to achieve? If you keep looking and we said that the mind is always available for observation. If you keep looking, you find that the mind runs after objects and no object ever satisfies it. You find that the mind has desires and ultimately the mind desires that the desires must not be there. You want to desire something so big and total that will bring you to a full stop. But the mind can only desire objects and all objects are limited and small. So, no objects satisfy you. You keep on moving from money to man, from one man to another, to respect, to knowledge, to adventure, and everything fails.
It promises satisfaction, it promises destination but it never really delivers on the promise, and one is made a fool of. One keeps believing in the promises made by objects only to be disappointed; one time after another. One shop disappoints us; we go to the next shop. One door is closed upon us; we go to the next door.
The mind is continuously running; this running is the disease of the mind. Now, psychotherapy; how does one heal the mind? Does that require, I ask you again, expert knowledge? Do you require a certified teacher for that? Is that not all open, is that not all laid out nicely, comfortably to be read by you?
Find out what is it that the mind is really looking for. The mind's irony is that it is looking for that which it cannot conceptualize, but it can run after only that which it can conceptualize. It’s like a kit running after a bird. Now, the kid loves the bird but all that the kid has is legs, not wings. So, even when the kid is teasing the bird, all that it is doing is running on the ground. Now, on the ground, it will never find the bird that is the predicament of the mind. It is chasing the sky while running on the earth. All the objects that the mind chases are always on the earth, none of them belong to the sky. But nothing on the earth ever satisfies the mind. The mind wants the sky.
How to get to the sky?
I am reminded of and in love with this small fable by Chuang Tzu. He tells of a man who was desperately running to come to a point where he would not be able to hear his own footsteps. He wanted peace, he wanted silence. He would say, “I want to reach that point where there is no noise; where I can’t hear these ugly footsteps.” And he kept running, and running, and running to reach there, and one day he fell down exhausted. He realized he has reached.
The more the mind runs, the more it misses. If it is, ‘it is’, it is not to be sought. If it is, ‘it is’, it is not to be built or created. Does that tell you how to heal the mind? Does that tell you that spirituality is nothing but psychotherapy? Does that tell you that there is no other healing possible? Does that tell you that when a lover is wailing, then he does not need psychotherapy, he needs the beloved?
The mind is a lover weeping in separation. It needs that which it is crazy for, no substitutes would work, no toys would work. The real thing alone would suffice.
All wisdom, all truth is the touch the sound of that real thing. Nothing but the touch of Truth would heal the mind. That alone is psychotherapy, that touch of Truth is also called as Satsang. Being in touch with the Truth. Let the Truth touch you. And let it touch you intimately. Everything else is just going to fail, like everything else that has failed you so far.
