Hridaya Kshetram

Dropping the Movement of Trying

21 October 2025

Question: How can we turn off trying in our head during meditation? Sometimes there’s effortless being, but other times, there’s this part of me that tries to stay in it or go deeper. I notice that even trying to ignore that part is still the same, trying. How can I just turn it off?
AMMA: It happens, but you will realise later that every kind of ‘trying’ is an escape of the mind. Still, it happens, because the patterns and conditions of the mind don’t say 'no' immediately. Whatever you say, it answers, 'I’ll try’.
That’s why sometimes situations come that push you into a place where you can no longer try. You must simply accept. Every effort carries the possibility of failure, so you must be conscious right there.
When there is a mood of trying — skip it. Don’t do it. I’m saying this within the inner pattern. If you act on it, you say 'yes' to it. If the mind is chattering while you’re sitting and you keep trying, trying, trying and nothing happens, then stop. Say, 'Enough’. Get up, do something else. Don’t sit and keep trying.
That you can try something else, not that. Because if you keep trying to stop trying, only the pattern of trying remains. Then you will have to try again to get rid of that! That’s why I say, do nothing.
When the impulse to try arises, stop even that. The effort to become or to be something, stop even that. You are not trying anything. That is effortlessness, not even trying to ignore, not trying to invite, not trying to fight. Nothing.
That is summa iru. You’re not giving power to any of it. The mind may not let go, but you are not trying. You simply Are.
The powerless 'I' is not rising to do anything. Only when you want to do something can you try. If you don’t want to do anything, there’s nothing to try. The mind chatters — fine. You’re not trying to do anything about it. That’s the best thing.
Because the very idea of 'I must do something' gives reality to the mind. Instead, sit for nothing. ‘I’m sitting here for nothing’.And I do feel that all of you are sitting here for nothing. Really! If anyone feels, 'I’m sitting here for something’, that’s the problem. Okay, questions, doubts — those are fine. But otherwise, nothing.
You’re not sitting to get anything. You’re not going to receive something you don’t already have. The very thought, 'I want something, I’m getting something, I’m receiving something’, is just the mode of the mind.
I’m not joking. I’m serious. Even when I came and sat here, I thought, 'There’s nothing to do. I’m not doing anything here. You are not doing anything here.' In that state, we are connected to Truth — anyonyam — oneness.
Every doing, every trying has something to achieve. But the basic ignorance is the urge to become something. Every moment, the mind wants to become — body, mind, something. Why again do you want to become? The movement to become is trying.
Dropping that movement, leaving all the becoming is simply being. Even by listening, you can feel the relaxation. So much peace arises. You come back to your being easily when there’s no want, no trying, just being. In that peace, there is oneness. That peace is the connection. It is truth itself.
The absolute connection is only in that stillness. You don’t have to connect anything there. All other connections — mind to mind, word to word — are temporary. The absolute connection is peace and stillness. That connects to everything.
So don’t try anything. Don’t become anything. That is satsang, the ultimate satsang. Even when you are at home, if you can simply be – not trying, not becoming, not doing any effort — the stillness and peace arise by themselves. They are already there. You don’t achieve them; you recognise them.
Every attempt at achievement is a movement of ego.