___THE MIND___

The essence of yoga and spiritual education is the control of mind. Once you control your mind, happiness and peace come as a natural consequence.

Almost all our agonies and pains are due to not having proper control over our mind. Instead of becoming master of our mind, we have become its slave. It makes us dance from here to there according to its whims. Instead of us dictating upon it, it is dictating on us and pulling and pushing us in various directions.  The servant has become the master and the master has become the servant. We have to restore our master status and place the servant in its proper position if we want to be really happy and peaceful again.

Although difficult, yet by constant practice and firm determination, it is definitely possible to conquer your mind.

WHAT IS MIND?

                Mind is that faculty by virtue of which we are able to be conscious and aware of ourselves. Consciousness and awareness of self and others are the basic characteristics of mind which distinguish sentient or living things (having mind) from insentient or non living things (not having mind). It is the mind which thinks, reasons, analyzes, discriminates, feels good or bad, senses pleasure and pain, imagines and worries etc. An inanimate object doesn’t have all these faculties. Your mind is the real you. Your body is in your possession, it is an instrument of mind through which it (mind) acts in the world and also suffers or enjoys.

It is the mind which sees, hears, smells, tastes etc. through respective sense organs and through the mechanism of the brain. Mind feels the pleasures or pains of the body. If mind is off or disconnected from the body, you will feel no pain. It is also the mind which speaks, eats and works through respective physical organs.

MIND IS DIFFERENT FROM THE BRAIN

                The brain is a physical organ like any other organ of the body while mind is a non-physical entity. The brain can be compared with a sophisticated computer through which mind controls and connects itself to the body.  Thus the brain acts as a link between the mind and the body. The body and the brain are made alive and animated by entry of mind only.

LEVELS OF MIND: There are three levels of mind which together give the mind a single identity.

                Conscious Mind is that part of our mind which reasons, thinks, discriminates, contemplates and analyzes emotions or feelings of all sorts, i.e. likes, dislikes, love, hatred, jealousy, anger, joys, sorrows etc., are all experienced in this mind. Imagination of all sorts of future happenings and worrying about the past are all done through this mind. Through physical senses (sight, sound, smell, touch and taste), conscious mind remains in contact with the outside world.

                Subconscious Mind is another level of mind and is accessed when we go deep inside our inner journey. The subconscious mind is the storehouse of our memory. All that we have ever seen, heard, thought, talked, done,  get stored here as a sort of permanent record. Emotions linked with our thoughts, words and actions are also deposited in our subconscious mind along with memory. It is this emotional part of our thoughts/words/deeds which after depositing in the subconscious mind plays havoc with us. These emotions make the conscious mind restless by constantly agitating it from below. They are like fire balls kept below the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The urges and impulses rising from the subconscious mind constantly demand satisfaction through the conscious mind.

                Super-conscious Mind is our real self without any impurity and full of bliss and peace. If we can have a glimpse of it even for a moment we will be filled with indescribable peace. The more we are able to stay at this place, the more of bliss and peace we can have. In fact what we call everlasting peace and happiness comes by our contact with this real self. The illusory happiness or pleasures which we derive from worldly possessions and sensory enjoyments are only short lived and mixed with pain.

STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Waking State (Jagrat):  There are various states in which your mind or consciousness can express itself. When you are wide awake to the world around you, thinking, analyzing, reasoning, feeling about things, you are said to be in a waking state of consciousness. In this state your conscious mind is fully active and alert.

Dream State (Swapna):  Here your conscious mind goes to sleep but subconscious mind remains active.

Deep Sleep State (Sushupthi):  Here both your conscious and subconscious mind is at rest.

Meditation/Transcendental (Turiya):  In meditation also, first you still your conscious mind and then the subconscious mind and finally reach the super conscious state with full awareness. Please note that in deep sleep    also, both conscious and subconscious mind are quiet but since you have no awareness, you slip   into an unconscious state rather than to the super conscious state.

SLOWING DOWN THE MIND

Mind of most of the people runs with a tremendous velocity with one thought after another. Their mind is not able to remain calm even for a moment. They are always planning, worrying, moving and tensing. Gradually it becomes a deep rooted habit and a type of mind set. Even when there is nothing to worry, these people search some cause for worry and remain under free floating anxiety. When there is nothing to do, they move tense as to what to do now, instead of utilizing this opportunity to relax their minds.

What is meant by high velocity of mind?  It is a parameter indicating the number of thoughts moving across your mind per unit of time. Slowing down your mind essentially means reducing the number of thoughts in your mind per unit of time. Suppose previously one thousand thoughts used to move across your mind in a minute, and now only hundred thoughts move in the same time. It means you have slowed down your mind to that extent. Mind velocity is particularly high during emotions of hurry, impatience and desperation.

High velocity of mind or the tremendous rush of thoughts in mind is essentially a sign of a weak and uncontrolled mind. A controlled mind can continue to keep only one thought for as long as it desires without allowing other thoughts to come in. It may even remain thoughtless for a period of time.

Now the way to reduce the velocity of mind is to slow it down to attend to only the present activity in your hand. Don’t remain in the memory of past and anticipations and apprehensions of future. Learn to live in the present. It is only when you think ahead of time and become past and future oriented that the speed of your mind increases and it also leads to poor performance of the present task in hand.

Normally while doing anything, we think ahead of the time when this work will be finished and we can enjoy our leisure. In this process we neglect the present and spend our time in unhappiness. It is our future-oriented and rushing mind which blocks our happiness of the present moment and keeps our mind constantly agitated. Once you learn to slow down your mind to the activity in hand, you will find that the most ordinary and mundane work, which used to be quite boring earlier, becomes quite interesting and a source of great joy and satisfaction.

It is only by slowing down and paying attention to each moment that many of the things happening around us which are normally taken for granted and seem dull and uninteresting, become highly interesting and enjoyable. If we want to experience joy and happiness in our work, we should leave the attitude of rushing through our activities and to somehow finish them as early as possible. This should be replaced by an attitude of care and awareness in each activity however trivial it may be. If we are not mindful in each small activity, we can’t be mindful in carrying out important tasks also because attitude and frame of mind can’t be suddenly changed.

  

When we become the master of our mind, nothing good or bad will work upon us.

                               We will be free from the bondage of anything.

‘Mind is the most powerful thing in the world.

One who has controlled his mind can control anything in the world’

-  Swami Sivananda -