The Dark Side of Introspection: How Overthinking Can Harm Your Mental Health

Suppose you're driving, instead of looking through the windshield, if you go on looking at the mirror - rear-view mirror - I think you should be on the reverse gear, not on the top gear.

Ya? So all these introspection nonsense has come to you from English people. They brought this in this country. We don't believe in introspection because see, you are trying to analyze your own mess. It's not going to work like that. If you hold it at a distance, you clearly know what it is. You don't have to think about it.

It's like this, let's say tonight, you want to fly from Delhi airport. You are going, then your flight time is coming, but there's a huge traffic jam. How do you experience a traffic jam? Oh, deep suffering, though you may be sitting in your dream car. Alright, now somehow you go to the airport, got into the airplane and it flipped, then you went up, then you looked down. Still, the traffic jam was on. It looks so beautiful, white lights and red lights, swing of them, really beautiful. Have you seen this? Yes. All that happened is a little distance, isn't it? Once there's little distance, that's no more a problem. You know how to deal with it, and major realizations have happened like this.

See, if I ask you to walk up and down this stage and determine whether this planet is round or flat, what is your experience? It's flat. It's flat. This argument would have continued for another thousand years. It got settled because we started traversing the oceans. Then we could see, it seems to be round. Then we started flying, clearly, the shape was very obvious. Then we went and stood up, stood on the moon and looked down, 100% clear. Something so simple, we couldn't see when we were walking on the planet, isn't it?

It's the same thing, the nature of your mind, the nature of the instruments of life, which is the body and the mind. In yoga, we don't see body and mind. There is a physical body and there's a mental body because mind means unfortunately the European idea of our mind is inside our head now, essentially you call something mind because there's a certain volume of intelligence and memory. That's what you're calling as mind, isn't it?

Do you remember five generations ago how your great-grandmother looked like? No, but her nose is sitting on your face, yes or no? A million years ago, how your forefathers were, still your epithelial cells remember what was the skin tone, yes or no? So every cell in your body carries a trillion times more memory than your brain can ever process, yes or no?

Now we were talking about the most complex chemical factory. If you look at what one molecule of DNA performs in a minute, all the factories on the planet cannot do, all the computers on the planet, supercomputers on the planet, cannot do that many functions. That's how it's functioning. So both in terms of intelligence and memory, is it spread right across, yes or no? At least your neurological system is spread right across. You can see that. So mind is not in one place. There is a body of mind, there is a body of memory, there is a body of physicality, there is a body of energy.

So, if you just look at one part of who you are and try to meddle with that constantly, if you don't know how to make the other things function, and other things are functioning by accident, it's like somebody is trying to drive with the handbrake on. A lot of people do this, they don't realize. They think, press the throttle, press the throttle, it'll go. No, okay, it may catch fire. A car can catch fire if you drive with brakes on. Right now, most people are like this because they have come to a school or a college. Now a little bit of intellect has been fired up with all kinds of outside information. With this, they are doing all kinds of things. An introspection, who is introspecting whom? These are all question ideas which have brought enormous suffering to human beings, enormous psychological process as a consequence of the type of data that you have gathered and how you process it, isn't it? If you keep it little aside, it has no impact on you. When you want, you should use it. When you don't want, you must keep it aside. But right now, people think they are thinking all the time. What you're calling is introspection. I'm sorry if I'm in any way insulting you, I don't intend that. You know that it is a kind of mental diarrhea. It's just going on. You're giving it all kinds of names but essentially, see, thinking means consciously you use your thought process to go in a certain direction. That's thinking. If it's simply running all the time, that's diarrhea, isn't it? So, you must differentiate between the two. Is this a conscious thought process or is it simply running wildly? It is very important.

Introspection means the rear view of your life. Let’s say you are a young woman, but if you do inspire introspection, you'll already feel like you've lived too long. Yes, the most intelligent thing people think you know, Shakespeare came up with this "to be or not to be". This is supposed to be the most intellectual question. Tell me, if you're blessed out, will you think "to be or not to be"? Only if you're miserable, only if you're finding life to be burdensome, only then you will think "to be or not to be", isn't it so?

In many ways, your introspection, whether you're doing it in small proportion or big proportion, is the basis of mental illness. Because you're trying to find solutions in a garbage bin that you have, which you call as your mind. What is there? Only what has come to you through five senses is there, nothing more. If you're looking for something new, let me tell you this. You are a computer engineer now on the way, right? Already is okay. Can your computer function beyond the data that you have fit in? The same is true with your mind. What it is, is a computing process. Maybe far more complex than the computers you're operating, but essentially it's a computing process. Without data, it doesn't function. So, if you know the data, if you have written the software, you know the data, you know what it can do and what it cannot do. What is there to introspect?

So, am I overthinking or introspecting? Both are not needed. You need more clarity of saying things. If you see something, if you can just see it clearly as it is, then there is no need to introspect anything. Once again, I'm reminding you, you're a young woman. But, is it okay? I'm not saying you're a baby, I'm saying a young woman. Do I see you as a baby? So, I'm just telling you this. See how long one's life is simply depends upon in terms of your experience, not in terms of your age. Have you noticed this? On a certain day, you're very joyful, 24 hours went off like a moment, is it true? Another day, you're a little depressed, 24 hours feels like thousand years, yes? So, only miserable people can live a long life. If you're joyful, it gets over before you know what's happening. Before you figure out what is this about, you see your funeral. I feel like I was born day before yesterday.

So the issue is this: we are trying to fix life with introspection, morality, ethics, ideas, philosophies, opinions, role models, this, that, no, that's not what is needed. What is needed is this: life should happen in an exuberant way, in the highest pinnacle that it can happen. It should spark! If you spoke all the time physically, you will be fine. Your genius will spark, everything will happen well. Will everything happen in the world the way you want it? No, the world will never happen one hundred percent the way you want it, because you're all young. A lot of you are in this dream, and you will find that ideal person, perfect person in your life, man or woman or whatever. I'm not trying to destroy all the romance, I'm just telling you: you will be deeply disappointed. Krishna (Hindu God), most fantastic man, but his wives were constantly complaining. Not because there's something wrong with him, but because in the very nature of existence, nobody in this world will happen just the way you want them. Yes or no?

So there is one option: you can make yourself happen the way you want. If you do that one thing, where is the need for all this? That's what you need to do.

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