How can we make the atma control the mind and the body?

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram To All

 

 

 

Welcome once more to my Q and A session and this time I have three questions in my bag. As earlier, the questions broadly touch upon the same theme, and of course, therefore have some overlap. I shall first read out the three questions and then take them up for response, one by one. The questions I shall be dealing with today are as follows thats Question 1

 

QUESTION 1: How can we make the atma control the mind and the body?

 

QUESTION 2: Why is man still attached to the world when he knows well that he must reach God?

 

QUESTION 3: How can we understand the principle of “I AM I�

 

Let me start with the first question namely, how do we put the atma in the driving seat and make it control our mind, senses, and the body. Evidently, the questioner knows, as Baba has told us ever so often, that the human being is a composite of three entities, namely the gross body plus the senses, the subtle mind and the even more subtle atma, that forms the core, as it were, of our personality, and indeed our entire nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The question now is among these three, who bosses whom and what is the pecking order? There are basically two options, the first of which is atma first, mind next, and body-cum-senses last; in fact this is the order God wants us to follow. However, in reality, more than 99 % of humans adopt a different hierarchy in which the body and the senses come first, the mind next, and as for the atma, it is sidelined if not shut out.

 

God wants us to follow a particular hierarchy with good reason; and that reason is that this approach would lead us to Him, and eventually unite us with Him; and once that happens, we would be in bliss for ever. Of course, this is not a cakewalk and one has to strive hard, an important portion of which is strict sense and mind control. Both the senses and the mind do not like this discipline one bit, and that precisely is where all the troubles start.

 

It was thousands of years ago, and it is so even now; only, the difficulties of taming the mind at the present time have become Himalayan, thanks to huge industries that have come up for pandering to the senses. And of course there is the media which constantly parades all these “goodies and attractions†both via titillating stories and massive advertising. What the questioner wants to know is how, in the midst of this huge storm created by the wrong hierarchy, can one stick to the agenda that God want us to, which is to put atma in the primary place.

 

This is a very good question and I would like to deal with it in stages. Firstly, why do the senses and the mind gain ascendance over the individual and manage to establish themselves on the throne reserved for the atma? Next, what happens as a result? And finally, how to set things right, which is really what the questioner wants to know.

 

It all starts with the fact that everyone without exception always wants to be happy; I mean who would want to be miserable and strive for mental depression? On the other hand, people do make a lot of effort to seek happiness. The question now becomes, “Where do I find this happiness?†Even as one is asking oneself this question, a lot of agents appear suddenly, seemingly from nowhere. Actually, these agents are lurking in the corners of the mind and waiting for an opportunity, and once they get an opening, they unleash their full marketing force.

 

The agency that gets busy to lead man up the garden path has no formal name but we might call it, Desire Inc. The agents of this powerful corporation come out, complete with brochures and all the information one would want, and start a never-ending campaign. One agent would say, “Sir, if it is happiness you want, I can tell you where exactly to find it. It is in this bottle; just try it, and see how many heavens become accessible to you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Desire Inc. is designed to cater to the mind and senseswhile forgetting the atma

 

 

 

You do not have to perform any yagas and yagnas (sacrifices or rituals) to go to heaven after you die. You can have heaven right now. This is an offer you simply cannot refuse!†And so on it goes, with agents of Desire Inc. tempting humans to try sense gratification of various kinds.

 

Man falls for this, forgetting completely why God gave him the senses and the body. Instead, he allows his senses and the mind to be completely under the control of various enemy corporations, of which Desire Inc. is just one.

So, what is the net result? It all starts off appearing to be fabulous but soon there is trouble which thereafter sticks to the individual like a leech. Once trouble attaches itself, it is quite difficult to remove it, and so, if one were sensible and wise, he or she would do all that is necessary to avoid getting into trouble in the first place.

 

The reader might say, “OK, all this is fine, I know about it all since I have heard it so many times in Baba’s discourses. What I want to know is how to produce a regime change, kicking out the mind from the throne and installing atma in its place; anyway, God intended the atma to sit there and rule; how do I make that happen? Got any ideas?†I must necessarily now attend to that part of the overall issue.

 

According to me, the first step in this is to recognise, that by having a wrong operating system, we have got it all wrong. That is to say, we must first of all be conscious of the enormous mistake we make when we keep the atma out and install the mind as the boss of our destiny. Having recognised this fatal mistake, we must next do all we can to make the mind vacate that spot – not easy but the effort must be made.

 

Now, desires invariably breed addiction; thus people acquire addiction to drinking, drugs, gambling and so on. How to get rid of these terrible and well-entrenched bad habits? Swami gives a nice strategy. He says: “Suppose every morning as you sit down with your newspaper and cup of tea, a stray dog walks into your room. It wags its tail and touched by it you throw a biscuit. The dog eats the biscuits and feels very happy.

 

Next day, the same thing happens and soon the dog becomes a regular visitor; it has got used to the habit. Not only that, it becomes a nuisance as well. If some day you are busy doing something else, it barks loud, disturbing everybody. One day, you child might be sick and you are rushing to the doctor, but the dog is there, insisting on its feed; and incidentally, the demand of the dog has grown; it is no longer satisfied with just one biscuit; it wants many. You are now sick and tired of this dog and are desperate to get rid of the dog once and for all, but do not know how to.â€

 

Baba says there is a simple trick for dealing with this problem – just deny the dog what it is demanding from you. Next time you are with the paper and sipping tea and the dog shows up, just ignore it; the dog would do all it can including rolling over, to catch your attention but just ignore it and make it frustrated. Do it one day, two days, three days and so on; slowly, the dog would get frustrated and stop bothering you, and try to find some other “customerâ€.

 

In fact, Baba has summarised this recipe into a neat formula that has just two words: Daiva Preethi and Paapa Bheethi, meaning respectively, “Love of God†and “Fear of Sinâ€. How does this magic formula operate? Swami says it is really simple. When you love God dearly, and I really mean dearly, then when some temptation arises you would tell yourself, “Maybe I can indulge in this but would God be pleased?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can we show our love for God in all that we say and do?

He would not; on the other hand, He would be most disappointed, saying I gave this fellow this most precious life so that he could purify himself and become united with Me for ever; instead, he is simply blowing away his golden opportunity!†In short, the first step in restoring control back to the atma is to develop a strong love for God.

 

This love must not be an intermittent affair, like erratic electric power that comes on and goes off quite unpredictably. On the contrary, it must be both strong and steady.

 

OK, what about the second part of the formula, namely the Paapa Bheethi or “Fear of Sin� Well, that is a natural corollary to love for God, is it not? I mean if we really love God, how can one ever indulge in sin? Thus, fear of sin must go hand in hand with love for god. This raises an important question: “What exactly is sin?†If this question is asked, most people would rapidly list all the standard list of sins ranging from theft and stealing to gambling and adultery.

 

All these are no doubt undesirable traits and must be avoided; however, sin means much more. In a larger sense, sin means any act that would displease God and delay our union with Him. Seen from this perspective, being selfish is a sin. Similarly, being angry or jealous is a sin and so on. In the Twelfth Chapter of the Gita, Lord Krishna spells out crisply all the specifications for becoming dear to Him. If we violate anyone of those, then we are committing a sin.

 

What it all boils down to is that if we really love God, we would think a thousand times before doing anything that is not pleasing to Him. So, at the end of that somewhat elaborate discussion, I would say we just have to start loving God dearly and do all we can to stay away from anything that God would not like us to do. If we get that right, then we are well on the way to restoring the atma to its rightful position in the internal hierarchy!

 

I hope you made some sense of all that! Let me now move on to the second question which is:

 

Continued.......the Answers for My Second Question is Tomorrow Sai Ram...Think Well and try to find a correct answer Sai Ram

 

QUESTION 2: Why is man still attached to the world when he knows well that he must reach God?