Self Control: Forcible or Gradual

[Guest guest]

To bring peace and tranquillity to the mind the samskaras must be

neutralised by counter-samskaras. That is the famous thesis of

Patanjali - pratipaksha bhavana. Counter-samskaras must be created

against each samskara. Samskaras are like marks on stone, they last

forever, but they can be neutralised. This is where the practice of

self-mastery comes from. You must fight bad habits with good new

habits. You can combat a thought with a thought. Speech must be

controlled by speech. It is an all out response. Bad habits cannot be

neutralised by good thought. They cannot go away all of a sudden. If

you drive a screw into the wall with thirty turns, you cannot pull it

out without breaking the wall. You must unscrew it thirty turns.

 

This is also the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. A samskara is formed

by three organs: by talking about it, by thinking about it and by

acting according to it. The three acting together make samskaras.

That which you think only can be driven away by counter-thought, but

when the three are joined, it affects the glands and hormones. You

must be aware that when certain thoughts arise, the whole system

becomes inflamed. When such thoughts have an immediate effect, it

means we have practised them for a long long time in this or previous

lives. We do not need a prophet to tell us.

 

We have to uproot them by developing counter samskaras. How is this

done? The Yoga system gives one method and Vedanta gives another.

Yoga says you should be forcible. Life is short, samskaras are deep,

mind is perverted, and reason is weak. You are trying to make a tiger

non-violent by feeding him a vegetarian diet. Forget about it. The

logic of the Yoga system maintains that the mind is material. Its

impure conditioning is mechanical and reason is too weak to overcome

its perversion. It is also difficult to know the nature, depth and

extent of the impurities. All we know is that the mind is restless

and turbulent. It is being expressed by unevenness of breath, changes

in our biochemistry and restless movement of our body. The mind is

never controlled unless you control it. Hence control must be

forcible. Take the bull by the horns. Vedanta says, " Feed the bull

with green grass. Then you will ride the bull. " Life is short. When

the bull will become pacified, we don't know. We will be dead by

then. So take the bull by the horns.

 

The Yoga system prescribes the eight-fold practice which you know -

yama/niyama. The first five are external and the last three internal.

It asks for the rise of the whole mind to overcome the obstacles and

with unwavering determination. Educating the mind to give up its old

ways is a slow process. Auspicious desires are not always

forthcoming. The journey to the goal is never completed unless we

hasten our steps.

 

The Yoga system relies more on practical aspects and is distinguished

from the aspect of dispassion. Patanjali refers to dispassion

(vairagya) as a complementary means for control of the mind, not

primary. It seeks to develop reason through training the exercise of

willpower. It seeks to arouse then modify our sub-conscious

indirectly through the help of regulation of breath, posture and diet.

 

to be continued...