14. Mind is fickle and difficult to be checked......

http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/self-improvement/mind-is-fickle-and-difficult-to-be-checked

Sage Patanjali says the senses follow the mind in the same way the hive of bees follows the queen bee. Wherever the queen bee goes, they just follow her. Similarly, if the mind truly goes inward, the senses will also go inward behind it. But as a habit my senses seem to drag the mind to the external world, in pursue for material objects, food, or circumstances related to professional, social, or economic life. Can the senses be blamed for pulling the mind to the outside world? No, if I see the anatomy of my physical body the design of the Absolute is such that the sense organs face the outside world.    

The 5 sense organs namely eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin are those through which my mind gets in touch with external world. These senses are the source of information for my mind that is in direct connection with the thoughts and past memories. The moment I am out of bed early in the morning my mind employs these five sense organs because they are there and are permanently engaged. It is impossible for me to shut down my senses. My mind has to know how to deal with the external world and see that it would not be sucked into the illusions and delusions. The ancient sages talked about how to develop clarity of mind and learn not to be distracted by the external stimulations.

Should I blame my mind for all the chaos then? Yes and No. Eat, mate, defend and sleep are the four activates that depend on the basic instincts and mind necessarily might not get involved in it. Basic instinct is a natural behavior as in animals, it does not know if the act is right or wrong. There are many instances where a human yield to this instinct and behave worst than an animal ignoring the cautions given by the intellect. The inability to heed to the cautions is the failure of the mind.          

Once a seeker felt that if the senses are kept in check the chaos of the mind can be controlled. He was told by his Guru that instead of controlling the senses it would be better if mind is attentive to the advice of the intellect. But he did not agree and headed straight to the near by hill seeking solitude. On the first day his eyes fell on a newly married woman who was grazing goats, he thought to himself that she was very attractive and it would be nice for him to befriend and have her company. Coming back to his senses he blamed his eyes for going in the direction of the woman who was the wife of another man, so he decided that he has to shut his eyes.

The next day as the woman passed by, he could hear the jingle of her anklets and said to himself: “The pretty woman has arrived.” Realizing that just closing his eyes was not going to be of much help and he decided to plug his ears also. The next day he could smell the fragrance of the flowers the woman wore in her hair. So the next day he sat with his eyes closed, ear plugged and nose masked, as the time approached for the woman’s arrival he could think of nothing else but the woman. He kept telling himself: “This is the time she arrives, anytime she will be here.”

Thus, shutting his eyes, plugging his ears, and masking his nose had not brought him any relief. That was when the seeker realized that it was not the sense that led the mind but it was the mind that led the senses to the erroneous direction. Hence the senses need not be controlled, but the need was for the mind to be controlled by heeding to intellect. Controlling the mind is not easily achieved, for the mind is fickle. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, “Undoubtedly the mind is fickle and difficult to be checked. Yet, O son of Kunti, it can be brought under control by dispassion and spiritual practice.”  

Why does Mind not listen to Intellect??? Is it due to Samskaras (Impressions)??? For it is Samskaras which decide what a person is and how he behaves…….. If so what has to be done to get away from such Samskaras??? ......... Lets try to look at it in the next post!!!!!!

12. Ego, Mind, Reality and Miracle…….!

There are series of events that happen in our lifespan and every event, if it is a cause will have an effect and if it is an effect it will certainly have a cause. Sometimes the cause or the effect will not be visible. It is in such rare cases that our Ego misjudge and declares the event impossible and if that which our ego has told impossible happens it calls the event a “MIRACLE”. Our Ego does not want our Mind to believe in “REALITY”. The erroneous faith that we are the Body, Mind and Intellect is the breeding ground for the Ego to exist. It is that firm belief which make Ego to possibly take our Mind further away from our authentic Self.

When I think the thoughts which appear has to be about past or future I will never have thoughts of present. If I think about now there is no thoughts and it will be void. If it is void then it has to be silence and in silence there is no Mind. If there is no Mind there is no Ego. This is the reason why Ego hates silence in my thoughts, because it will have no space and will just vanish. Ego will never allow the Mind to accept Reality, it fears losing its identity.

Ego and Reality can never co-exist. Naturally Reality is ever-present and this is the issue of concern to Ego and it wants to hide it from the Mind. To hide it from the Mind, Ego tricks the Mind to think about unwanted things so that it too busy to inquire about eternal Truth or to dwell in the authentic Self. 

Mind will go inward to the Self if the struggle of the Ego to trick the Mind stops. Amazingly blogging and thinking of a topic to write a blog is also a part of Ego fooling the Mind though on a creative side, the only solace is it is not on the destructive side.

Reality has no extent and hence finding it cannot be in the process, but it can be the final destination. Ego does not easily accept this and wants to convince the Mind that over a period of time Reality will be revealed. But as long as my Mind is in the process of searching for Reality, the Reality remains veiled. 

Why does reality not manifest itself? 

Simply because it does not want to have a conflict with the Ego which is a worthless fantasy and self created for its own survival.

Even without Ego Mind can exist but if Mind thinks only of the present. This will make the Mind aware of the evidence of Reality in everything. There is no room to be judgmental as it identifies with the Self and is familiar with the “is-ness” of every other being. It is like when a restless night shift worker calls up the manager to inform about the machine breakdown and to confess the inability to fulfill the production target to be delivered in the morning. The manager has had the buffer stock from the day shift and reassures the worker and tells him not to panic. Like the manager if the Mind also knows the reality it remains calm and not act as the restless worker. Mind can remain calm in the middle of worthless babble if it knows how momentary everything else around it is.

The mind has to be aware that Reality has all the elements like Comprehension, Clarity, Care, Calm, Contentment and Courage. These elements endorse Unconditional Love, Tranquility, Plenitude, Well-being and Oneness with all. And this is MIRACLE.

4. Can the Invincible Mind be controlled??? If so who can???

 

Our actions are constantly propelled by whims and fancies of the Manas (Mind). Mind is the faculty of perceiving and also processing the information that is perceived through passions, emotions, feelings and impulses. We also have another aspect called the Buddhi (Intellect) Intellect is the faculty of discrimination. The functions of the intellect is to thinking, reflecting, reasoning, discriminating, judging, and distinguishing between pairs of opposites. Mind operates in the field of known while intellect tries to reach beyond the known to know the unknown. Hence knowledge is gained by intellect.

There is constant conflict between Intellect (Buddhi) and Mind (Manas) that is witnessed by Consciousness (Atma). This is never seen in animals. Let us suppose a landlord who happens to leave his house for a few days orders both his housekeeper and the dog not to venture out of the house in his absence. Even though both have violated the order, the dog has no inner conflict and sleeps happily, but the housekeeper is sleepless because of guilt. The intellect which is the talking conscience pricks the mind, this is called guilty conscience. If mind listens to the intellect and order the sense organs then there would be no conflict between the mind and intellect. When we say we have a disturbed mind then we have done something that our intellect does not want us to do.

The mind has to be controlled by intellect, and in turn the mind has to have control over the sense organs (Indriyas). If our sense organs are horses of a chariot, the mind is the leash that is held by intellect, the charioteer. The chariot will move in the right direction only if the charioteer has control over the horses through the leash. The mind is like the supervisor in the factory of life, and directs the senses. The mind does a wonderful job of carrying out directions, but it is not supposed to be the key decision-maker in the factory. That is the job of intellect. If intellect is clouded, then the mind has a habit of listening to whoever is speaking the loudest in the factory. If this happens there is chaos in the factory, same is true in our life the mind has to heed to the words of the intellect if it starts to listen to what senses says there is chaos. It is this chaotic situation which make it difficult to experience inner peace. If the Mind is not controlled by Intellect any number of sessions of Meditation will be a futile effort……… What say????