The chattering inside your mind never seems to stop. Words, sentences, images and sounds keep attacking you from all sides from deep within your mind. Sometimes, this chatter becomes unbearable and you become desperate to escape. What is it that dominates you so totally; even tortures you sometimes; seems to run your life? Your mind.

The tragedy is that most people do not even know it, as they think that they are just their minds. They do not know the difference between themselves and their mind and cannot see that they are separate from their minds, leave alone confronting this dictator. As you grow up, the mind keeps on becoming more powerful. It stores information, images, sounds and smells. This is your memory. Right from the nursery school to primary school to college, the mind is trained and fed more information and so becomes stronger. You are told – indeed, conditioned - that you need a tough mind to earn a living and to survive in this wicked world.

All this time, your heart – that is your emotions – are sidelined, indeed suppressed. Even as an infant, when you wanted to cry, you were distracted or pampered to stop it. As child, when you wanted to laugh at some stupid or funny incident, you were told to stop it. When you wanted to dance during a formal event, you were prevented. As you grew up, these orders did not come from elders but your mind who took over from them. And all those tears, laughter and dance remains buried deep down in you – thanks to your mind. In fact, your heart and emotions became subordinate to your mind.

As you grow, your mind starts to play subtle games with you. It tells you when you must be happy or sad; when you can express your emotions and when you can suppress them; and what to say to whom. So, are you really joyous by living according to your mind? Can you go on living under the dictatorship of your mind? No, you protest. “I want to control my mind,” you respond instantly. Hold on; this is the big problem. The more you try to control it, the more it starts to fight back. Controlling the mind is not easy. In fact, the ancient Indian texts say that it is easier to balance on grain of rye on a needle than to control the thoughts of one’s mind.

Osho says, “The mind is mischievous. It goes on befooling you; it plays so many mischiefs upon you that you are not aware of. The first mischief is: the wise man shares his wisdom and you immediately jump upon it and reduce it into knowledge. The second mischief is: the wise man helps you to be yourself and you start hard work in imitating the wise man -- you try to be like him.”

So what’s the answer? Mind your mind. Meditate. Then you will be able to feel you’re your mind and think with your heart.