Today you were saying, "Objectify the mind." Can you explain this strange instruction?
What is an object? An object is something which you can know, something you keep in front of you and you watch; it becomes an object and you know it. Now, yoga, as you are all aware, is something to know yourself, and how do you know yourself? The point is that we identify ourselves with the mind so much. When the mind is happy, we are happy. When the mind is sorrowful, we are sorrowful. When the mind is excited, we are excited.
Yoga psychology tells us that it is the mind which is excited, that it is the mind that is sorrowful. Indian philosophy believes - even Sage Patanjali says - that the soul does not have anything of the nature of pain, pleasure, loss, gain, success, failure, fortune, misfortune... All those polarities, those dualities are not for the Self, not for the Soul, they are all for the mind. So, in our business of life, our normal work of life, we identify ourselves with the mind so much, therefore we become the mind. And philosophy says, metaphysics says that we are not the mind, that the mind is our instrument. You are not your hands, you are not your legs. You say "my hands, my legs, my body, my brain." You also say "my intelligence." You also say "my mind," but at the same time, you identify yourself so much with the mind, like between a lover and beloved. If something happens to the beloved, if the beloved is suffering, the lover is in agony, because there is so much identification between the two.
Similarly, between us and the mind, between the "I" and the mind, there is so much attachment and mine-ness that anything happening to mind is happening to us. And philosophy tells us that it is not true. Metaphysics tell us that it is not true. It is your mind, it is one of the instruments within one of the parts of you. Just as I said the leg is a part of you, and the hand and the brain - similarly, the mind is a part of you just as the limbs are different, as your body is different from you. Now, if you want to know the mind, the only way is that it must be an object. You will only know objects. Subject is the knower. Subject will not be made as knowable. You cannot know the subject. The subject is the knower. The object is the knowable. So, if you want to know the mind, the mind must be objectified and that's why, in yoga psychology, you are made to watch your body, you are made to watch your breath, you are made to watch your mind also. When you watch your mind, your own awareness, naturally there is objectification: the mind is objectified, and if you objectify the mind, the result of the process is that you develop a superior subject.
Suppose mind N° 1 is your subject and with it, you know the things - the book, the table, the stool, the mountains and rivers. Now, mind N° 1, subjected to enquiry becomes an object and the finer mind becomes the subject. Let us call it mind N° 2; it is mind N° 2 which is now the subject. Now, when you make the mind N° 2 as an object, mind N° 3 surfaces. Obviously, what happens? It is interpenetration, like the onion whose skin you can peel out - there are various petals layers, you remove them and ultimately you come to the stem of it. Similarly, the mind is like an onion or garlic: you have to remove the external coats and the layers of it to reach the core. That is how the mind is to be objectified so that finer mind comes to the surface. That mind N° 2 becomes the object, then mind N° 3 becomes the object... and ultimately you go towards the core. That is how you can have what is called Self-study, or understanding of the Self - svadhyaya - that is how you go closer towards the core body. So if you want to proceed from peripheral body towards the core body, apart from body mind, and finer and finer mind - that is how refinement in your consciousness takes place and ultimately, you can be going towards the core. That is how the objectification of the mind is peculiar to yoga psychology.
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