Master The Mind By Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

EMBODIMENTS of love! To see the lamp that gives light you don’t need another lamp. So also no other means of cognition is needed to realise the self-effulgent Atma or Self. The Self is changeless. The Buddhi (intellect) has no light of its own but it shines by the effulgence of the Atma. If the intellect is able. to apprehend and judge everything in the world, it is due to the power of the Self. Buddhi or intellect is based on Medha shakthi (intelligence). The power of the intellect is only a reflection, of Atma Chaithanya (the effulgence of the Atma). The mind has two aspects, as doer and experiencer. It is the cause of the sense of attachment and possession. Human action is more evident in the wakeful state than in the dream state or deep sleep state. In the deep sleep state, the Super Intellectual Consciousness is shining and the mind, senses and intellect are dormant. Just as a red hot iron glows more brilliantly than fire itself, though the fire is the cause thereof, the individual intellectual consciousness shines more because of the Cosmic Consciousness. When the mind is dormant in the deep sleep state, the Super Mind becomes active. In this state, man has no desire or fear or anxiety.

Man is bound by the mind and the senses. In the pursuit of the spiritual path, first of all the mind should be brought under control. When the mind is steady, you reach the state of Super-Mind. In this state there is no room for physical or transient worldly feelings. As long as the mind is pure, no evil can enter the heart. When it is polluted with bad feelings,” there is room for evil thoughts to breed.

We have to recognise the fact that human life depends on the functioning of the mind. As long as one is governed by the mind one continues to be human. Once one goes beyond the mind, one can enjoy the vastness of the limitless expanse of Cosmic Consciousness. Here is an example: Suppose you construct a spacious house with a number of bed rooms, living rooms, dining room and bath room. The spacious house appears divided into a number of small rooms. This is because of the walls put up for partitioning into rooms. If the walls are pulled down, the house will be one vast mansion. Similarly, the body is the Upadhi (wall) which limits one’s perception to the narrow confines of the body. Once you get rid of this body consciousness, you will experience the vast expanse of the Universal Cosmic Consciousness which is all-pervasive. Just as the hands, ears, eyes and legs are all angas (limbs or organs) of individual human body, the bodies of all human beings are the limbs of society. Again, society itself is a limb of mankind. And humanity is a limb of Prakrithi (Nature)and Prakrithi is a limb of Divinity. One should understand this Anga-Angee-Bhava – relationship between Divinity and human beings, in the proper perspective.

Though man is endowed with Buddhi (intelligence), he is not able to master the senses. One should understand the great significance of human life, which is superior to that of all other species. Because of the body consciousness, man is forgetting his inherent divinity. You study a great deal about Prakrithi (Nature) and worldly things, and lead an artificial life, without realising that the heart is the seat of Divinity. If you allow bad feelings to enter the heart, it will be polluted and the Divine will have no place therein. The whole world today is replete with pollution of not only the individual senses but also the five elements. The air is impure; water is polluted and everything you see or hear or touch is polluted. How can you expect to have peace in the world? Vedantha teaches that we should go beyond the mind and realise the inner vision to prevent bad feelings entering the heart and polluting the seat of God.

MASTERING THE MIND BY SWAMI SIVANANDA SARASWATI

Sadhana for Mastering the Mind

by Swami Sivananda

You take great care of the body. You desire that it should be clean, healthy, beautiful and strong. You take bath with sweet soaps and hot water. You regularly feed it with nourishing food. If there is the least pain or disease medicine is given. Doctor is consulted. But you never give a thought to the much more important thing-MIND. Body is only the outward appearance, a projection of the mind. Mind operates through the senses and the sense-organs. If the mind is well then the body is well. If the mind is sick the body becomes ill. Mind is everything. It controls your whole life. Upon it depends your happiness or misery, success or failure. “Mana eva Manushyanam Karanam Bandhamokshayoh” thus say the Upanishads. Again, ‘Yena Manojitam Jagat Jitam Tena’ is the great truth. As you think, so you become. Do you fully realise now the great importance of controlling, training and overcoming the mind? So long you have neglected the care of the mind. Attend to this vital subject from now. Mastery of mind means success in all fields of life. To achieve this mastery you must study the mind. You must understand its nature, habits, tricks and the effective methods of bringing it under restraint.

Mind is a bundle of desires, thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is nothing but a collection of Samskaras, desires arising from contact of the sense-organs with different objects, feeling aroused by worldly botherations, ideas gathered together from various different objects. These desires, feelings and ideas are not steady-they will be constantly changing. Suddenly some will subside and some others will occupy their places like the waves in the seas. Some old ones will depart from the storehouse, the mind and some new ones will replace them at once. It is also a bundle of habits. The bad habits and prejudices, although hidden by one’s own nature will come up and occupy the surface of the mind as and when opportunity occurs.

According to the Vedantic school of philosophy mind is of middling size (same size as that of the body), it is atomic (Anu) as per Nyaya school and Patanjali Maharshi says in Raja Yoga that it is Vibhu (all-pervading). Most of the western doctors, who are still groping in utter darkness, say that it is an excretion of the brain, like bile from liver.

Lord Krishna says, “The senses of which the mind is the sixth (Manah-shashtanindriyani)”-Gita, Chap. XV-7. Here the five senses are the five Jnana Indriyas, viz., the ear, the skin, the tongue, the nose, the eye; and the mind is termed as the sixth. Mind is the common sensory and an aggregate of the five senses. As all the five senses are mingled with it, the mind is able to see, hear, smell, taste and feel independently of the senses.

Mind assumes the shape of any object instantly it thinks upon it. If it thinks of a mango, it assumes the form of a mango. Then it gets an attachment with the mango. Now a desire arises in the mind to taste it. Then the mind makes a firm determination to eat that mango and satisfy itself. One thought follows another. The thought of the mango invites instantaneously the thought of the mango-fruit seller, the tree, the garden where the tree is and so on and so forth. This is the expansion of thoughts or Sankalpas. The whole world is nothing but the expansion of Sankalpas. This expansion of Sankalpas of mind towards the various objects is called Bondage. The present-day people have no right understanding, discriminative power between unreal and real. They are completely deluded by Maya. They are under the firm grip or crocodile catch of Maya. They have fallen prey to worldly desires and enjoyments. Therefore they are victims to this bondage, forgetting totally their divine birthright-liberation from the dire disease of births and deaths and attainment of Immortality, the Life Eternal and final Beatitude!

Mind is a monkey which jumps from one place to another. It is like the air, which is always moving (Chanchala). Just as the quick-silver it scatters its rays over various objects. It can also be compared to a furious elephant, because of its passionate impetuosity. Like the fish out of the water, it will always be thirsting to run after evil habits and entertain bad and vicious thoughts. It is also known as a “Great Bird” because it skips from one object to another just as the bird wanders from one tree to another tree, one twig to another, and one place to another.

The last thought determines the next birth. “Whosoever at the end leaves the body, thinking upon any being, to that being only he goes, O Kaunteya! because of the constant thought of that being”-Gita, Chap. VIII-6. Whatever thought you entertain at the last breath, accordingly you take your next birth. This thought entirely depends upon the constant desires and ideas you entertained throughout your whole life.

Every man has a definite outlook of life; due to the power of the mind he has got a definite thinking, definite craving, desire and hope and definite character, temperament, taste and attitude. For the gratification of the mind these desires, cravings etc., are constantly repeated again and again, and these acts leave definite impressions upon the subconscious mind. The impressions take indelible forms in the subconscious mind.