2009

MIND YOUR MIND

BY MANBLUNDER

BY HOMEPC 9/27/2009

INTRODUCTION

Mind is maya or illusion. The Brahman manifests in this universe in the form of various objects. When such objects are attractive, we develop desire to attain that object, irrespective the means adopted. The efforts to have that object leads to misery. When we get hold of the object, we develop desire and attachment towards the object. In this process, we tend to forget our creator and as a result we undergo sufferings and miseries. In this small booklet we will discuss the concept of mind and ways and means to control our mind. If we do not control the activities of mind, in due course mind will keep us under its control. If such a situation arises our sufferings and miseries are not far away. The articles in this booklet have already been published in my blog www.manblunder.com. This is the second e-book from MANBLUNDER.

CHENNAI INDIA

V. RAVI

September 28, 2009 www.manblunder.com

Mind is our best friend and worst enemy as well. Normally, we are under the control of mind. If we want to realise ourselves, we have to keep mind under our control. Our mind plays a vital role during meditation. Therefore let us understand what mind is and the ways and means to bring it under our control. We will have a comprehensive study about mind through a series of postings, this being the first.

Mind is known as knowledge, intellectual ability, the seat of faculty and reasoning and formation of opinion. These are the dictionary meanings of mind. Mind can create and destroy depending upon its tuning. Mind functions on two grounds. One is on the basis of actual and actual experience. This means that mind functions on the basis signals received from sensory organs. Second is on the basis of visualization. This means not connected to sensory organs. For example we can say our dream state. Though we do not see anything physically, still mind recognizes our dreams. Therefore we can say mind works on the basis of impressions. Impressions can be external like seeing through our eyes or internal like dreaming. Its external impressions can be controlled by human efforts and its internal impressions cannot be controlled by human efforts. Impressions of mind can be through any sensory organs, not necessarily eyes. It can be through eyes, ears, mouth, skin and nose. The worst products of mind are anger, greed, addiction etc. The mind is always alert, analyzes, evaluates and takes a final decision on the inputs received through sensory organs. Its final decision is transformed into action. The resultant action may be good or bad. Depending upon the end result of your actions, you are called good or bad.

If ever alert and powerful mind can be conquered by us and the end product of the mind can be determined by us. Otherwise only mind decides the end product. Mind is given the utmost importance in yoga sutras. This is because manifestation happens only through mind. We have already seen that mind and thought are independent and interdependent. It is difficult to say whether your mind produces your thoughts or your thoughts influence your mind. As we are unable to find an answer, we call them as interdependent. Both mind and thought are invisible. Mind can think only about the past and the present. It can only visualize the future. Mind is so powerful that it can even remember the vasanas or impressions of our past lives also. But this does not happen with everybody. Only by yogic practice, such super human qualities can be achieved. The mind is called the sixth sense, which does not exist in other living beings except humans. Mind is responsible for our karmas as well.

Unless we learn to control our mind, our so called journey to divinity becomes irrelevant. Meditation is a process through which mind can be controlled. Mind is mostly overworked as it has to attend to all the sensory organs. Even in our dream state mind is active. Only in the stage of deep sleep mind takes rest. When you are overworked, you become exhausted. In the same way when your mind is overworked it refuses to function or malfunctions resulting in anger and depression. When it is over worked it refuses to listen to you. This is the position when mind is controlling you.

Mind receives information from our sense organs and gives information to organs of actions like hand, legs etc. It is like two way traffic. The input received by mind is modified and evaluated based on reasoning and the decision of the mind is conveyed through the organs of action. Let us take an example. Somebody is yelling at you. Your mind is patiently observing and evaluating the situation. The velocity of the yell increases. Your mind will wait till a point of time. Beyond the level of tolerance it communicates its decision through your sensory organ say mouth which makes you to yell back. If it does not find improvement, it directs your organ of action, in this case hands to hit the yeller. At every stage mind evaluates the situation through the inputs it receives. The verdict of the mind may not be the same in everybody. If the mind is well tuned in a person, it may not give command to retort. The mind of a yogi will not respond to this situation at all. Rearing mind and child is one and the same. The child learns from what it observes. If you quarrel in the presence of a child, it will learn the art of quarrelling. In the same way mind also gets impressions from the sensory organs and acts. Like a child mind is to be carefully nurtured.

The ashtanga yoga which we have discussed earlier is connected to the mind only. Every anga or part or limb ultimately leads to controlling the mind. To tame the mind you have to first tame your sense organs. Withdrawing the mind from the sense organs is meditation. The inputs into the mind should not be allowed. There are several ways of cutting off these inputs. For example, if you move away to a secluded place, there is not much of work for the sense organs, though your mind will continue to work. It is not right to go to forest just for controlling your mind. One has to learn to control the mind amidst day to day activities. Another dreadful enemy of mind is ego. When ego is destroyed, you do not gain experience. When you do not have experience you do not get impressions in the mind. Ego as such is not bad, but identifying ego with I is bad. If you realise ego as your atman, then ego is not bad; as a matter of fact it is good.

When mind is controlled, your thoughts are also controlled as they are interdependent. Becoming thoughtless is the penultimate stage to self realisation. At this stage, your mind in co-ordination with your body is getting ready to realise self illuminating atman inside. Becoming thoughtless will not lead to a blank mind. Mind cannot become blank. If it is blank how will you recognize the illuminating atman inside? There is also a famous saying that an idle mind is a devils workshop. So mind always needs something or other to ponder about. That something should be atman. Let us learn how to control our mind.

Controlling mind is a very difficult job, as its root is the most complex part of the human anatomy, the brain. Raja yoga talks about controlling mind. Mind is mainly influenced by association. If you are associated with learned men, your mind starts thinking in the way the learned men think. If you are associated with ordinary men, your mind thinks only in an ordinary way. Even great saints cannot totally control the mind. Even for them, the mind may stray away. The difference between them and us is that 4

they can bring back their mind in no time, whereas we allow the mind to remain strayed for a longer duration. That is why I am saying that one should tame his mind. You should become the master or boss for your mind. Mind should know that you are a tough boss to deal with. Yoga is the path through which you can achieve mind control.

Ego is the worst enemy for mind, followed by lust and greed. You should never allow your ego to dominate. I ness is an addiction. A mind influenced by ego, destroys truth, destroys love, destroys kindness, and destroys charity. You will consider ego as the supreme. Instead of universal consciousness you attach importance to I consciousness. I consciousness is an illusion or maya. In this stage you consider yourself as a separate and distinct entity from God, the universal consciousness. Unfortunately this is the stage in which most of us live.

Why we should tame our mind? Is it not a fact that we enjoy all worldly pleasures through our thoughts and mind? Yes, we enjoy every bit of worldly pleasures through our mind only. When your mind is happy it makes your physical body to enjoy the happiness. Mind cannot enjoy the end result of happiness and it always acts through the organs of action or sensory organs. When you are too happy, you get tears in your eyes. You get tears because the mind acts through your eyes. In a nail biting cricket match, you automatically move to edge of your chair due to the influence of mind which feels the excitement. That is why I have said earlier, your association plays a vital role in influencing your mind. Association can be with an event or place or people or action. Association can be for a longer duration or for a shorter duration. Such associations do not modify the influence on your mind. But an association for a longer period leads to addiction. Addiction is extremely difficult to get rid of. Any bad association will make your mind wicked. An association with thieves makes you a thief. Second biggest issue with the mind is suspicion. Doubting about an anticipated end result certainly will not give you the result you wanted. Affirmation is the greatest boon to mind. When you are repeatedly affirming on a positive result, you can be rest assured that the result will be certainly positive.

We should tame our mind so that it continues to retain its original identity, identifying itself with the supreme Atman. Right from our birth, our mind is influenced by so many factors both good and bad. All these influences leave impressions in our mind. When we tame our mind in such a way that it is not influenced by our experience, then mind retains its original identity. Taming can be done only by training. So we have to train our mind. First step is to cut off all the inputs to the mind. The inputs to the mind are given by our sensory organs. To control the inputs to the sensory organs self control is important. For an effective self control you have to have a great will power. Where do you get this will power? You will be surprised to know that you derive will power only from your mind. How is it possible to control your mind by a product derived from the same mind itself? Will power is a product of the mind that is not influenced by the sense organs. There are no external inputs and the inputs are only internal and these inputs are generated by mind itself. This is called subconscious mind. 5

Mind can be classified broadly under two categories. They are conscious mind and sub-conscious mind. Conscious mind receives information through the sensory organs. This means conscious mind is the knower and perceiver. It recognizes sensations and thoughts. Conscious mind can receive inputs only through sensory organs. It comes to a conclusion based upon the inputs and uses its own reasoning and intelligence. Let us take an example. You went for an evening musical concert. You enjoyed the music. How do you know that you enjoyed the music? Because you were physically present in the concert and your sensory organs, in this case ears passed on the musical notes to the mind. Mind by using its reasoning and intelligence decides that the concert was good. That is how you came to know that you enjoyed the music. None of your organs can decide the quality of the music. Only mind can decide that. You go to concert of the same performer after a month. Your mind already knows that this artists music will be good. So you are going to the concert with a predetermined notion. In other words, you mind has already decided that the concert is going to be good, as it has already experienced his music. In reality the concert may not be that good like the last time. In other words, you mind already has impressions of this artists music. There are two aspects to be noticed here. First, your mind thinks positively, therefore the concert will be good. Secondly, your mind thinks positively based on its impressions. Unless you have an experience you cannot have impressions. In this case your mind has prior experience about the concert; therefore it has the impressions of the artists performance. In future also, whenever you attend this artists performance, your mind will always predetermine the quality of the performance. When an act is repeatedly done, it becomes a habit.

Habit is result of subconscious mind. As we have seen earlier, for subconscious mind there are no inputs but only impressions. When impressions are deeply embedded in your subconscious mind, it supersedes the conscious mind, simply on the basis of its seniority and experience. When your subconscious mind begins to act, either good or bad, it is difficult for you to control it. When we are not able to control our conscious mind, how we are going to control our subconscious mind? It is extremely difficult as subconscious mind leads to addiction, the unconquerable enemy. It is difficult to find a habitual smoker stopping the habit of smoking. Therefore, subconscious mind should have the impressions of good ideas and habits. Only subconscious mind decides your destiny. Subconscious mind is the product of conscious mind. Without conscious mind, subconscious mind cannot exist. Conscious mind arrives at a conclusion based on reasoning and intelligence, but subconscious mind does not have reasoning and intelligence. Therefore subconscious mind does not know what is good and what is bad. It can only act and acts decisively. The inputs to the conscious mind are given by the sensory organs and inputs to the subconscious mind are given by the conscious mind. We have already discussed how conscious mind receives inputs based on our association.

But certain activities are controlled only by subconscious mind, without the influence of the conscious mind. For example beating of heart is controlled directly by your subconscious mind. Even if your conscious mind wants to stop the heart beat, it cannot do so. Conscious mind cannot boss over the subconscious mind, as conscious mind is junior and less experienced than the subconscious mind. 6

We have seen earlier that conscious mind receives inputs through our sensory organs. How do our sensory organs collect their information? The information they collect are mostly from objects. Eyes see objects. Ears hear the sound produced by objects. Skin feels the touch of the objects. Nose realises the smell from the objects. Our mouth chews the objects. This is how sensory organs gather their inputs from the objects. Therefore we can say our conscious mind is connected or associated with objects. Hence, the conscious mind is always objective in nature.

In the case of our subconscious mind it does not receive inputs from objects, whereas it receives inputs only from the conscious mind. Conscious mind does not just transfer the inputs it received from the sensory organs. Inputs received by the conscious mind based on the objects get processed and modified as subjects and then fed to the subconscious mind. What is the process and modification done by the conscious mind? Conscious mind receives only raw and fresh inputs. Such raw inputs are processed, modified and packed and sent to subconscious mind. During this process, intelligence and emotions are added as preservatives. The packs thus received by the subconscious mind are unpacked and stored in the subconscious mind itself. It must be remembered that we need intelligence to recognize atman in our self, which is otherwise called self realisation. This intelligence is provided by the subconscious mind. Hence subconscious mind is subjective in nature. It is subjective because this modification takes place within the mind itself.

The subconscious mind becomes very powerful as it stores the processed and ready to use materials. It is like a computer hard disc where all the information is stored, ready for retrieval at any time. It is you who provide inputs to your mind like providing data to the hard disc. The hard disc accepts whatever the data you provide, whether your data is right or wrong. In the same way your subconscious mind accepts whatever the data provided by your conscious mind. Subconscious mind does not have the capacity to evaluate its inputs. But inputs to the mind through the sensory organs have been already analyzed and evaluated by the conscious mind. We can now fairly understand the functions of mind and also its power. Mind is the most powerful tool of all the creations. That is why pages and pages have been used to discuss about the mind. Mind attains great importance because it is the mind that needs to be tuned to realise God. God exists everywhere and we just need to realise this fact.

Why we are advised to go to temples or any other places of worship? Why we are advised to study the epics? Why we are advised to perform mantra japas? Why we are advised to sing or at least listen to songs in praise of God? Why we are advised to take bath in holy rivers? Why we are asked to light incense sticks in places of worship? Why idols of Gods are adorned with flowers? For all these questions and for many more such questions, the answer is the same; for providing positive influence on our sensory organs. When your conscious mind receives positive inputs from the sensory organs, these 7

positive inputs are processed and endowed with knowledge and emotions and stored in your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is now highly energized and ready to act and act decisively. We have seen that mind is broadly classified into two parts. One is conscious and objective mind and the other is subconscious and subjective mind. Conscious and objective mind works with maya or illusion. Subconscious and subjective mind works with atman. When we talk about subject and object, are we not recollecting our discussions on prakasha and vimarsha forms? Please visit finding god for details. You are right; we are almost there, closing in towards our destination. A thorough understanding of the mind enables us to identify the prakasha vimarsha maha maya swarupini. What is required is the right and proper inputs to our mind. If the inputs are right, mind will have proper ground for training. Mind can be trained in the way you like, provided you become its master. You can become a master only if you know its intricacies. Mind is full of complexities; therefore to acquire complete knowledge of mind is difficult. You cant win over your enemies unless you know their strength and weakness. In the same unless you understand your minds strength and weakness, you cant conquer your mind. This is the reason why we are taking so much of pains to understand mind.

The first step towards conquering the mind is control your sensory organs thereby cutting off unwanted inputs to the conscious mind. Bad association gives bad inputs to our mind. Rituals are prescribed in ancient scriptures only to prevent our mind from wandering. Mind should have a proper direction. Any bad influence causes bad impressions in our subconscious mind which ultimately result in bad actions. The influence of bad actions affects our karmas. Whether good or bad, our karmas affect our jiva which continues its transmigration. One of the main aims of self realisation is not to be reborn. Therefore our mind has to be always pure and serene. Generation of thoughts is another problem. Mind and thought are interrelated. Therefore you have to be watchful on the kind of thoughts that are generated. Do not associate with your thoughts, be a witness to it. Let us understand this with an example. What is the difference between associating with a thought and being a witness to a thought? We have discussed about a music concert earlier. Let us take that as an example here. Thought arises because of an action. You listen to the music. When the music is good, you enjoy the music. Even after you leave the concert hall you think about the soothing music. In this case you are a witness to your thoughts. If you want to become a musician by yourself, you are associating with the thought. In the first case you are not influenced by your thought and in the second case you are influenced by your thought. To become a musician you have to learn music, the process is time consuming and your main area of activity gets diverted. It is a vicious circle, one leading to another. That is why associating with the thought is dangerous. Being a witness causes nothing. You simply enjoy your thought and this enjoyment costs you nothing.

The first thing is to control the sensory organs. Secondly, do not identify with your thoughts and just be a witness. Positive affirmations make things happen. Therefore you should not give room for negative thoughts. If negative thoughts enter your subconscious mind, your negative thoughts will become a 8

reality. Unnecessary talks and chats affect our thoughts. Try and learn to talk less. Thoughts are closely associated with mind. So thoughts have to be pure. By associating with pure thoughts, your mind also becomes pure. This is the preliminary stage. As you progress, your mind should stop its actions. Generations of thoughts should also cease. When no thought exists and when your mind is without worldly impressions, the gates of divinity have been opened for you. Such a situation can be obtained only by an effective meditation. Attaining this stage is a precondition for kundalini meditation. In such a situation, instead of intelligence and knowledge being infused before transmitting the inputs to your subconscious mind, the mind itself becomes the source of knowledge and wisdom. This is not just worldly knowledge and wisdom. This is the knowledge of Atman that exists everywhere. How to realise that this wisdom and knowledge are divine? Since your mind has become inactive and thoughtless about worldly things such as attachments, greed, lust, desires etc. the remaining thing is atman, as atman prevails everywhere. When mind becomes inactive, the concept time viz. past, present and future is lost. The qualities of three gunas satwic, rajas and tamas are lost. When time and gunas are lost, the illusion or maya is also vanishes. When maya vanishes, duality also goes. When duality goes away you are able to realise the Supreme Brahman or Atman. This Atman will not give you anything as it does not act. It is only a mute spectator. There will be no more rebirths for you. Your sufferings come to an end and you merge with the Supreme.

From what we have discussed above, it should be clear that it is essential to tame our mind and become its master. Otherwise, mind will become our master and put us into difficulties. The secret of detachment lies in taming our mind. Breathing exercises help in keeping the mind under your control. That is why great importance is attached to pranayama. The practice of taming the mind should be commenced as early as possible. As you grow old, your worldly attachments also grow. Beyond a certain point you may not be able to control your mind at all. Your attachment starts with your father and mother, then wife then your children, then your grand children and it goes on like this without an end. That is why you should start the practice of detachment at an early age. It does not mean that when you are old you cannot develop detachment. As a matter of fact when you are old, you gain more wisdom and knowledge by experience. With the aid of wisdom and knowledge you can control your mind. But we should not forget that practice makes a man perfect.

THE END