Mind in the Mandala: Empowerment and Responsibility

     There is a very basic relationship between the mind and the bindu, as each is the center of everything within the entirety of its awareness. The mind, at once the center of the Universe and woven everywhere into its fabric, mirrors the solidity of the bindu within the microcosm of the mandala. You stand in the center of your Universe, look about, and see everything. This is your world-mandala, stretching even beyond the reach of your immediate vision, for you are connected to all of it, and it is within you and of you, and you and everything are truly one.
     It is important to understand that one’s mandala is not composed only of the physical things in the world, but also of the thoughts and ideas in one’s mind and the minds of others. Yet we must be extremely careful of the misleading distinction between elements of the world-mandala that exist within the mind and those that exist without. We must not think of the mind as a barrier between the world of "things" and that of "thoughts." Rather, it is an interface through which elements pass from one realm into the other. Through observation and meditation, elements from the world of "things" are brought into the mind and transmuted into "thoughts." Likewise, through creativity and productivity, "thoughts" are made into "things" that physically co-exist in the world around us. It is this continual cyclical interaction that characterizes the active mind, and most accurately describes the true relationship between inner and outer, thoughts and things, energy and material. One flows seemlessly into the other, as all things do, and are ultimately one.
     In much the same way that thoughts and things are related, so are the internal and external circumstances of your thinking process, or what can be collectively thought of as your mind. For example, your beliefs and attitudes are determined and crafted over time as a result of what you perceive and what you think about these perceptions. Likewise, the opinions and perspectives that you form in your mind affect how you behave toward the world around you, and how you interpret the information you take in. This is a continuous cyclical flow, in much the same way that stones in a river affect the water’s flow while they themselves are shaped and molded by the water itself.
     Such is the relationship between the bindu center that is you and the mandala of your life. Your unique position as center, seed, and anchor empowers you to bring about change, sometimes slow and subtle, but always certain. This empowerment brings with it a grave responsibility due to the interconnected nature of our lives. Your actions will vibrate outward from the center of the self along the web of the mandala, affecting everything and everyone in it. Therefore it is your obligation to maintain as harmonious a pattern of behavior as possible, because the wave of ramifications radiates inexorably outward, affecting the patterns of countless others. More people than you can imagine are connected to you in this way, unperceived links with the world mandalas of loved ones, neighbors you’ve never spoken with, even the stranger in the car behind you. We must always behave with the awareness that harmony nurtures harmony, and discord breeds discord.
     All actions that you would later regret you must learn to anticipate and avoid. Virtually all arguments and confrontations you have ever had and will ever have over the course of your life are a direct result of misunderstanding. For example, if someone cuts you off on the highway, the immediate reaction is to become angry. But if you analyze this, it will suddenly seem a very silly thing. Ask yourself: "Why does that anger me?" Is it because you are now one car-length further from your goal? That doesn’t seem so tragic a thing. Maybe you were subconsciously offended that this impudent stranger had the audacity to treat you like an inferior person. Well you are not inferior, and you must be confident of that. In any case, remember that his actions weren’t aimed personally at you, more than likely he wasn’t even aware of you. And it may be that he had a good reason for being in a hurry, so the best course of action, the most harmonious response, would be to simply not be bothered by it. This example is equally applicable at work, in family arguments, wherever.
     Even if such actions are directed personally at you, always remember that the perpetrator is acting out issues within himself. He is far more deserving of your sympathy than your anger. Getting angry creates negative tension in your mind, and even if you don’t take it out on the rude driver, or whomever, rest assured you will release it elsewhere, certainly on some other undeserving person. Discord like that will not end there, but will continue along the life-strands of your victim, propogating itself for longer than it should ever have been allowed to exist. So breathe full and deep, and let discord slide from you like raindrops. Thereby you will bring about the end of a long line of discord that may have been spreading insiduously for years, transforming it into a positive, harmonious force. You have the power, and therefore the responsibility, to be the nexus between a world-string of discord and one of harmony, transforming the negative into positive, anger into joy.
     That is a position of great honor indeed, and the greatest potential that each of us possesses in the unending quest for peace and universal harmony. Such vast power is within us, for the center is the focus and the conduit, and nothing may pass through us without touching us. And here we must decide whether to be controlled by unpleasant events, and therefore perpetuate their negativity, or take them into our grasp and absolve them, free them, dissipating the bad and leaving only the universally inherent good.
     This power is your unique, individual godhood, the manifestation of your ultimate self. Through it you may touch everything around you, and leave it far better than it was before.

March 24, 2003
by Peter Patrick Barreda, material copyright 2009, all rights reserved