O.M. Now, dreams—but we will examine
that later. Meantime, did you try commanding
your mind to wait for orders from you, and not do any
thinking on its own hook?
Y.M. Yes, I commanded it to stand ready to take
orders when I should wake in the morning.
O.M. Did it obey?
Y.M. No. It went to thinking of something
of its own initiation, without waiting for me.
Also—as you suggested—at night
I appointed a theme for it to begin on in the morning,
and commanded it to begin on that one and no other.
O.M. Did it obey?
Y.M. No.
O.M. How many times did you try the experiment?
Y.M. Ten.
O.M. How many successes did you score?
Y.M. Not one.
O.M. It is as I have said: the mind is
independent of the man. He has no control over
it; it does as it pleases. It will take up a
subject in spite of him; it will stick to it in spite
of him; it will throw it aside in spite of him.
It is entirely independent of him.
Y.M. Go on. Illustrate.
O.M. Do you know chess?
Y.M. I learned it a week ago.
O.M. Did your mind go on playing the game all
night that first night?
Y.M. Don’t mention it!
O.M. It was eagerly, unsatisfiably interested;
it rioted in the combinations; you implored it to
drop the game and let you get some sleep?
Y.M. Yes. It wouldn’t listen; it
played right along. It wore me out and I got
up haggard and wretched in the morning.
O.M. At some time or other you have been captivated
by a ridiculous rhyme-jingle?
Y.M. Indeed, yes!
“I saw Esau kissing Kate, And she saw I saw
Esau; I saw Esau, he saw Kate, And she saw—”
And so on. My mind went mad with joy over it.
It repeated it all day and all night for a week in
spite of all I could do to stop it, and it seemed
to me that I must surely go crazy.
O.M. And the new popular song?
Y.M. Oh yes! “In the Swee-eet By
and By”; etc. Yes, the new popular
song with the taking melody sings through one’s
head day and night, asleep and awake, till one is
a wreck. There is no getting the mind to let
it alone.
O.M. Yes, asleep as well as awake. The
mind is quite independent. It is master.
You have nothing to do with it. It is so apart
from you that it can conduct its affairs, sing its
songs, play its chess, weave its complex and ingeniously
constructed dreams, while you sleep. It has no
use for your help, no use for your guidance, and never
uses either, whether you be asleep or awake.
You have imagined that you could originate a thought
in your mind, and you have sincerely believed you
could do it.
Y.M. Yes, I have had that idea.
O.M. Yet you can’t originate a dream-thought
for it to work out, and get it accepted?
