Self Control: Forcible or Gradual

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We do not think because the mind does not give us opportunity to do

so. Not only is our mind restless, but our body is too. We know that

everything is constantly vibrating, but when the mind is restless the

vibrations are visible. They affect the whole body.

 

The mind experiences three states: waking, dream and deep sleep. The

mind is a migratory creature. It creates illusions, dreams, and

fancies. It creates variety, diversity. It limits the illimitable,

divides the indivisible, and wants to attain the impossible. It likes

imitation, not truth. The three states are like actors on a stage,

always coming and going. Even when the play is over, the stage is

illumined. That is the light of the Atman.

 

Again, the mind also has three modifications: sattva, rajas and

tamas - tranquillity, restlessness and inertia - rotating all the

time. These are the three qualities of mind. Everybody experiences

them. One who can control them is called a free soul, a knower of the

Self. The gunas are present in each person. We need them. When you

return from a day's work you badly need inertia, tamas. In the

morning, you need rajas, activity. The third quality, sattva or

tranquillity, is what you need when you go to meditate or pray. You

invoke it.

 

You probably know the six centres of consciousness. The mind is

constantly rising and falling from one to another. When you enter the

prayer room, you try to raise the mind to the fourth centre, the

heart. The body is like a six-storey house where the master of the

house lives in the basement. Living in the dark, dingy basement, he

has developed a taste for it. The mind has a remarkable capacity for

developing a taste for anything. If you keep a person in a place with

a strong smell, after some time that person will grow so accustomed

to it that he would be offended by sweeter fragrances. The average

mind remains pinned down to the three lower centres - the bottom of

the spine, the region of the organ of generation, and the navel. At

this level the whole world of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell

are only sending information about the palate and sense pleasure.

Nothing else. However, the same mind, when it rises to the fourth

level, appears homogenous and unified. It gives spiritual impulses

and gradually it rises higher and higher. The universe of names and

forms and diversities and dichotomies gradually dissolves into a

unified mass.

 

When the mind falls, what should one do? Three responses are

possible: give in, give up or fight. Giving in does not solve the

question. If we are depressed, giving in only perpetuates the

problem. If we give up, where can we go? We cannot jump out of our

minds. We do not have the capacity to give up, and if we force

ourselves to give up it will only create a heightened awareness of

the object coveted. If we fight, whom do we fight? Ourselves, and

this is extremely tiring.

 

to be continued...