There’s a man who has been by himself in a prison cell with a dirt floor, crude stone walls and two windows one of which looks out towards the ocean. 

All of the sudden, he hears a scratching noise and he looks down at the ground that is furthest away from the window facing the ocean. He sees the ground moving, and he starts to think he’s losing his mind. But soon the ground breaks, and up pops a head with long hair and a beard… it’s a prisoner.

The prisoner whispers “Sh. Listen, a group of us have been tunneling for about six years and we’ve finally reached your cell. We have ways to cover up my entrance into this, but now it’s all on your shoulders, man. All you have to do,” he said while pointing out the window towards the ocean, “you just start digging here and go down about six feet and about 75 feet in that direction and there is freedom, and we’re out of here!”

“Oh, I love that! That’s great; I want to be free!”

“Okay, I’ll check back with you in a few weeks.”

Two weeks later, he pops back in to check on his friend’s progress and his friend nods back with great affirmation. “Yeah, I’ve done it.”

So, the man who was providing the instructions pops down the hole, and two seconds later pops right back up and says, “What have you done?!?!?”

“Huh?”

“I told you to dig in the direction towards the ocean! This tunnel that you dug goes back under the wall and into the prison yard.”

“Well, the digging was easier in the other direction…”

There are no short-cuts or easy ways to anywhere worth going.

There are many who are physically in prisons, but we are all prisoners of our own mind. Freedom from being a prisoner of one’s mind is even more difficult. 

The problem is that we function in this world with a conditioned or programmed mind and a lack of awareness. Therefore, our actions are mechanical movements and our reactions are stereotype reactions. 

Most of our so-called problems are nothing but wild projections of our own minds. It is our minds that cause us utmost pain than even physical discomforts. The world of imagination and the illusion of fear and hope are great obstacles on the path of peace and happiness.

We need to break free from our mental prison by controlling the quantity, quality and focus of thoughts. We should not function under personal likes and dislikes or prejudice with reference to place, time, objects, people, relationships, situation, condition, circumstances, environment, etc. This can only be accomplished if we stopped giving values to these — neither positive nor negative.

Intellect under the control of the fickle mind is disastrous. Mind should always be under the control of an analytical intellect. 

Freed from the mental prison one lives in the eternal now with total absorption.