Mental Load: What If Spirituality Isn’t a Climb?
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A note for English-speaking readers: This satsang was given and written in French by Hans Yoganand ji; the teaching, its words and its experience are entirely his own. To make it available to a wider audience, the English translation was prepared with the help of AI tools, then carefully reviewed and revised by the author. Some phrasing may therefore feel less spontaneous than the original, but the meaning has been checked with care. Readers of French are warmly invited to read the original version.
Don’t Overthink It: Mental Load and Spirituality
Mental load, overthinking, endless questions about the meaning of sutras and doctrines: the mind grows restless and takes the place of what is essential. In this satsang, Hans Yoganand ji reminds us that spirituality is not a climb but a deepening, and that Realization is lived entirely in the instant, through meditation on the Holy-Name.
That said, both stem from the same mechanism: overthinking or being overwhelmed by one’s mental load amounts to the same thing. And in spirituality, it is no different! For us, Observants of The Path, practitioners of its original yoga, the source of overthinking, the mental load, can be the Observance itself. It can also be understanding, or oneself within the Observance.
So we search, we search through doctrines. We search in that of The Path, of course, but also in that of Buddha, in that of Patanjali, in those of various masters, while remaining diligent and faithful Observants. We search for doctrines, aphorisms, sutras, verses that explain things to us.
As is often the case in ancient Indian traditions, the texts we are given to read, verses or sutras, are abstruse, somewhat cryptic, not very understandable, especially in translation: translators are not necessarily beings who have realized the teachings these books describe. So we search for the meaning of the words, their significance.
All disciples, all people who are somewhat intelligent and curious, overthink a great deal. They try to understand, they reflect. This reflection, this search that passes through the brain, the intellect, acquired knowledge, generates a mental load that weighs down and hinders.
I don’t mean to speak ill of concepts; some are very good, very relevant. But going through concepts in order to evolve is doomed to failure, because the map is not the territory. It is not enough to read a road map to know the country we dream of; we have to go there. The map lets us choose our route, but it is not the map that makes us evolve spiritually.
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Evolving spiritually is not about becoming better, nor about moving from one grade to the next until we reach perfection. It is about deepening our relationship with God, the awareness of his fundamental harmony, of his Grace. It does make us better, of course, but that is not the goal; it is a side effect.
Mental load prevents us from enjoying the happiness of life lived in awareness. At some point, we ask ourselves what “awareness of the Holy-Name” means, but thinking about it is useless. I am not saying we should never think; we are not animals. We need to think about mathematics, the shopping list, all sorts of things, but not about God, devotion, the Holy-Name.
Some tell me that understanding lets them secure their footing, gives them holds to climb. But spirituality is not a climb: we do not go up, we stay where we are and, on the contrary, we go deeper.
All you need to do is meditate, do the Nectar, do the Holy-Name. If you can, close your eyes for a few moments and practice the Holy-Name. You leave outside what you were thinking about, the mental load, and you surrender to the instant. At the door of inner meditation, you leave your worries, your thoughts, your emotions.
You tell yourself: “I’m leaving my backpack here, I’ll pick it up later.” Perhaps later it will be lighter, or you will no longer need it. Perhaps you will no longer wish to put back on your shoulders this bag of hopes, memories, concepts, anger, incomprehension and doubt. It serves no purpose. No purpose. Realization lies entirely in the instant, and this instant is endlessly renewed; your realization is endlessly renewed.
When you realize ceaselessly in the instant, for many instants, you are realized. You spread it out, you spread it out, you reproduce, you reproduce the same instant into infinity.
Houses, the people you meet, the things you do, all of this changes, but something within you does not change. What does not change is the truth. The truth is in the instant, and to be in the instant, you only need to focus on the inner love of the Holy-Name. That’s all it is. There is nothing else to understand, no need to overthink.
If you overthink, if you carry a mental load, it is because you are attached to what you want to do, to something specific to work through like a to-do list. It is not attachment that is at fault, but what you attach yourself to: there is an attachment that frees and attachments that enslave. Of course there are things to do; you cannot leave things to themselves, to fall into decay.
You need to act in order to live, but let it not replace your meditation, let it not get in its way. The things you have to do, write them down and do them one after another, in order, at the right time. That’s it: make a list, keep it somewhere, then empty your head of all that.
Truly empty your head; the best way to do so is to meditate on the Holy-Name. That doesn’t stop you from enjoying yourself: going for a walk, meeting people, chatting, reading, watching a series. But don’t forget to meditate, to take a break regularly.
If you have any questions, please write here: madhyama.marga@gmail.com
Originally published at https://observance.over-blog.com on October 1, 2026.
