The following post is an excerpt from the talk “How to Get Out of Mental Ruts,” which can be read in full in Solving the Mystery of Life, Volume IV of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Collected Talks and Essays — soon to be released by Self-Realization Fellowship and later by Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. The full talk was given at Self-Realization Fellowship Golden Lotus Temple in Encinitas, California, on July 14, 1940.
Our paramount duty while on earth is to change our status from that of a mortal being to that of a divine being. But this world is replete with alluring playthings — shiny material toys that attract our attention — and myriad are the ways in which our thoughts and behaviour are routed into constricting channels of desires.
Unless guided by wisdom, we get caught in these delimited tracks and cannot move ahead in soul progress. It is only when we regard the pursuit of the Divine as foremost among all our desires that we find the route that leads to lasting happiness.
Analyse Your Progress in Life: Are You in a Rut?
If you are travelling along a dirt road and your automobile gets stuck in the mud, it takes skilful driving — and perhaps a tow truck! — to free your car from that rut. Likewise, mankind gets stuck in mental ruts; and how to get out of them is a subject that needs our attention.
All of you should periodically analyse your progress in life to see if you are in a rut. First, ask yourself what kind of road you are driving on. Are you travelling a smooth, bright highway that will take you surely to your life’s destination?…
Yet even then there is a chance that you are not steering properly. If you are too sure of yourself and carelessly take your eyes off the road, you can veer off course and into a rut by the wayside.
On any pathway in mortal life one can get mired in ruts; they are present everywhere to catch man’s consciousness. Some channel your feelings into compulsive anger; some keep you stuck in a mindset of pessimism or despondency; other ruts may hold you in fixed habits of avarice or jealousy or being overly critical, and so forth….
Just as when a car gets bogged down in mud or sand, and the driver steps on the accelerator, making the wheels spin rapidly, but the car remains in the same place — that is the condition of many persons. Even though their engine of life is running, their wheels are spinning uselessly. The progress and growth of such persons is negligible. They think they have grown up because their body has matured, but their brain, their mind, their attitudes remain stationary — psychologically and spiritually immature.
There is an art to getting out of mental ruts. Sit in a quiet place away from everybody and talk quietly with yourself. Think about the ways in which you can make your life more worthwhile and interesting, ways to improve yourself.
The very best way is to develop a deeper relationship with God by practising His presence more in your life. It is not necessary to talk to others about what you are doing. Just inwardly be with God.
He is the Source of all peace, all happiness. He is ever new joy. By getting to know Him, your life will no longer be dull and boring. There will always be new thoughts of inspiration flowing into your consciousness.
When you see people who are “psychological furniture,” never showing any positive change in their nature, you think: “I don’t want to be like them!”
I used to know someone in Boston like that. She was a wonderful soul, very refined and intelligent. But she had certain negative characteristics. She would dwell on the same fears, react with the same negative ideas and peculiarities, that she held fifteen years before.
Don’t be like that. Do not become desiccated with negation. You want to be vibrantly alive, not a dead stump! If you take an old rose bush, for instance, and prune off all of the dead wood, water it, and care for it, gradually life force begins to flow up through the bush, and little leaves start to come out. And then as the sunlight pours over the bush, magnificent blossoms appear. With proper tending, it continues to grow and flourish, entertaining us with its beauty and fragrance.
You can be like that. Rid yourself of all of the old habits that have paralyzed your progress and made you feel useless. Continuously grow leaves and blossoms of new experiences, new qualities, new improvements in body, mind, and soul.
When the winter of trials comes, some leaves of life fall away. This is normal. It doesn’t matter. Take it in your stride. Say, “Never mind, summer is coming, and I shall blossom forth again.” God has given inner strength for the tree to survive the harshest winters. You are no less endowed.
The wintertimes of life come not to destroy you, but to stimulate you to fresh enthusiasm and constructive effort, which will blossom forth in the spring of new opportunities that come to everyone.
You must say to yourself, “This wintertime of my life shall not last. I will get out of the grip of these trials, and I shall throw out new leaves and blossoms of improvements. And once more the bird of paradise shall sit on the branches of my life.”
If you find, for example, that you are afflicted with nervousness or digestive trouble or some other stress, do something constructive about it. Even if you suffer for a little while, it will be all right if you don’t get into a rut of helplessness.
Chronic disease is a form of mental rut that you think you can never get out of. Your mind must not accept any suggestion of sickness or limitation. Naturally, it is unrealistic to think that the body will remain the same always; it can be kept well for a long time, but eventually it will age and weaken. This does not mean your mind must succumb. The mind must be kept free.
When you look at your body it may appear to be old. But close your eyes and look within to your real Self, and you will see that you are Spirit. There is no death, no old age, no material circumscriptions when you close your eyes to the outer shell of life and open your inner eye of the soul.
You are pure Spirit. Every night in the freedom of deep sleep you actually behold yourself as such, for you have no form, no weight of the body, no consciousness of being a man or woman or any fixed type of personality. Wakefulness is the overarching mental rut. Controlling that state extricates one from the bondage of material life. Sleep is an unconscious respite; and its effects are temporary. The transcendent silence of deep meditation is the only way to release your consciousness permanently. Through meditation, you learn to retain conscious inner freedom all the time.
When the day is done, sit quietly in meditation and briefly analyse the day’s activities. Then mentally make the affirmation, “I am free from all ruts, from all thoughts and experiences that have limited me. My mind is resting in the blissful, boundless peace of God.” What happiness comes over one during such periods. No words can describe that joy.
But most people do not make the effort. Their priorities are pursuit of material things. And they think they are living because their heart is beating and breath is flowing. But that is not living; that is merely existing. Their wheels of accomplishment have been caught in sandy ruts on the road of life.
If you are in that state, put forth a sudden burst of extra power from within, so that the car of your life can jump out of the rut onto the free-flowing highway of steady progress. Then you can rumble along smoothly, avoiding further ditches of distractions, until you come to the vast, beautiful scenery of perceptions of God — of happiness, peace, tranquillity — and you can rest there.
That vista is real. It is not imagination. But to get there you must enter the deep silence produced by meditation. In that inner stillness, free of mortal thoughts, you will see that your soul is out of all mental ruts.
