I love this word, maia. The Sanskrit root is ma. It means to measure. And everything about the beauty of the mind is that the mind is simply about measurement. It isn’t about decision. This is what makes mind so extraordinary as a potential for outer authority. That is, its gift is being able to look at the maia and to be able to conceptually grasp certain aspects of the maia based on its particular unique potential. That measuring isn’t something that allows mind to be able to discern what is correct or not.

It is one of my favorite jokes about mind. I think it was one of my students, Shelden Lebron, who has a great sense of humor. He told this great mind joke. You have this guy that suddenly gets a thought that he should quit his job and sell everything he has and take all his money and go to a casino and put all that money on 18 Black at the roulette table. And every day he has the same thought, his mind cranking away. “We should really do this. We should really sell everything, take all our money, go to the casino, put it on 18 Black,” and on and on and on. And of course he finally does it. He quits his job, he sells everything, he takes all this cash, he goes off to the casino, he goes up to the roulette table, he puts all the money down on 18 Black and it comes up Red 7. And his mind goes “shit.” This is mind.

It’s not like mind knows what to do. It doesn’t. Everybody knows that who has ever relied on their mind. Your mind makes a decision, and the moment that the decision turns out to be a disaster, your mind says, “Oh, we should have done this, we could’ve done that. So, what’s the next thing that we should do?” based on mind making a decision. It’s not what mind’s job is all about.

~ Ra Uru Hu