SPIRITUAL SADHANA AND MIND CONTROL
The mind is a bundle of desires, thoughts, feelings and emotions. These desires, feelings and ideas are not at all steady. They change constantly. Some subside suddenly and others occupy their place, like the waves of the sea.
The mind is also a bundle of habits. The bad habits and prejudices, although hidden in one’s own nature, come up and occupy the surface of the mind as and when opportunities occur.
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| Swami Sivananda |
The mind is like a monkey which jumps from one place to another. It is like the air which always moves. The mind is always flitting from one object to another.
The mind is also compared to an elephant because of its passionate impetuosity. Most people allow the mind to run wild and follow its sweet will and desires.
The mind creates great havoc through the power of imagination.
Just as you saturate water with salt or sugar, you have to saturate your mind with sublime and soul-stirring spiritual thoughts.
Constantly think of the Lord, the hidden in-dweller. Remember His glories every moment.
Discriminate between the unreal and the real. Determine strongly to continually think of God.
(Teachings of Swami Sivananda)
In Purpose of Human Birth posts, we learnt in one of the posts that mind should never be controlled but it has to be channelized towards a nobler goal, a higher pursuit through spiritual sadhana.
While Karma or service to humanity helps in reducing our ego level, action by themselves cannot grant realization. This is a topic which shall be dealt in detail later, if Sai wills.
Selfless service must lead to either upasana (devotion) or in few cases, directly to Jnana (path of wisdom).
Most often, Karma leads to upasana, devotion. Devotion/upasana helps in channelizing all out wavering thoughts, our monkey mind, to the statue/ portrait of the God our mind chooses.
Related things like incense sticks, flowers, the instruments that are played, the songs sung in praise of Lord are all aids to improving our concentration on our chosen God.
More austerities, prayers, fasting and all such things prescribed in religion and stressed by our elders have one single aim.
The aim is constant
remembrance of God, more and more concentration on God which draws our mind
from other worldly thoughts arising out of attachment or hatred or fear. This
constant spiritual sadhana reduced our thought pattern and gradually makes us
more peaceful, more composed, more balanced than before.
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| Swami Narayana |
There was a great saint called Swami Narayana. One day he observed some villagers struggling with a cow. They were unable to milk it because it was giving a kick the moment anybody approached it. They could not go near the cow. Whenever it felt that somebody was coming near it, it would kick with its foot.
Swami Narayana was not only a saint but also a seeker in himself. He told these villagers, "I shall find a way of stopping this kicking". He took a long stick and, sitting a little away from the cow, slowly touched the cow's leg with that stick; it gave a kick immediately.
After a few seconds, he again touched it; it gave another kick. He sat there for the whole day, without taking food from morning to evening, doing only one work – touching the leg of the cow with the stick.
To the surprise of all the people who were witnessing this phenomenon, for a continuous twelve hours, this touching went on.
How long will the cow give a kick? It is also a living being. It got fed up, tired, and stopped kicking. Then he told them to milk the cow; it never kicked afterwards.
This example explains how mind can be tamed by constant sadhana.
One more example on constant practice of sadhana and mind control.
There was a fierce bull. If it saw any human being from a distance, it would make a hissing noise through its nose.
There was a gentleman who decided to control that bull. How will he control it, if he cannot go near it?
What he did was that he built a fence around that fierce bull. Now, one step for success has been taken – the bull cannot go outside the limit of the fence.
Previously, it could roam anywhere and attack anyone on the road; now it cannot go, because a fence is there. Likewise, do to the mind. It goes everywhere, roaming throughout the world, wanting anything and rejecting anything. Put a fence over it: within this limit only, it must operate. Give it whatever it wants within the limitation; do not deny everything.
The bull was within the fence. The next step was that the gentleman took a bundle of green grass, thrust his hand through the wire fence and showed the bull the grass.
The bull slowly came near. The man knew very well the ferocity of the bull – he could not touch it. But, because of the grass, it forgot the man outside and was thinking only of the grass.
He fed it every day; daily feeding it with grass was his only work, so that the bull became acquainted with the personality of this individual.
Every day it was seeing the same person. Then, with or without the grass he could gently touch the bull's forehead, and it would just look up.
Then he lessened the circle of the fence and made it more restricted, so that it was not more than a few square yards; he could go on patting the bull with his hand continuously, and feeding it with green grass.
The acquaintance became so intense that the bull started slowly licking the hand of the gentleman.
It developed an affection for him. Previously, fierce it was; animosity was its nature. It became friendly because of this affectionate treatment; it yielded to his touch.
Then he removed the fence and went near it with the grass. Without the fencing he went near it, touched it, gave the grass, patted it on the head, and even sat on its back. Can you imagine the success, to the surprise of all people?
What do we learn from the above example??
- First, we draw an outer limit, a fence and tell our mind, be within this fence/circle. You/the thoughts, should not go beyond this outer limit.
- Having drawn the outer limit, we then start feeding our mind with good thoughts/sadhana in the form of bhajans/satsangh/meditation/prayers/books of holy men/realized masters/incarnations.
- With our thoughts channelized to nobler pursuits thus, a time shall come when we do not realize/we do not feel the need for the outer limit/fence/control of our thoughts because the thoughts have already been channelized to sadhana and thus, have become purer themselves!
Love.
Sita goes in search of Lakshmana but soon comes back running and says “Lord, Lakshmana is sitting under a tree and crying bitterly”.
