Disciplining The Mind

Divine Life Society Publication: Disciplining The Mind by Sri Swami Krishnananda

(Spoken on October 23,1973)

The nature of things in the world demands that the mind has to be disciplined, and the process of the discipline and control of the mind is a gradual and steady approach to the ideal before us, slowly dissociating and freeing the mind from its entanglements in external phenomena, then steadily rising to the internal conditioning factors of the mind until we come to the mind itself. We may compare the art of controlling the mind to the art of controlling a wild beast. We cannot suddenly approach it in order to bring it under our control. Many months and sometimes years of practice are necessary in subjugating a wild animal, and the mind is such.

The mind is after what is pleasant, and not what is really to its own benefit, like a naughty child who does not know what is for its own good. It is not easy to control the mind.

Why is it so? The difficulty in the discipline of the mind is because the mind itself is the subject of action in this intricate process. We can deal with things and persons in the world, but we cannot deal with the mind in any manner whatsoever because of the simple fact that the mind is the centre of action, and it is not the object towards which the action is directed.

We can think of an object as having quantitative measurements such as weight, mass, etc., but the mind has no weight and no mass. We are accustomed to thinking of things in space and in time, as causally related items but the mind is no such thing whatsoever. It is not in space and in time, and cannot be said to be causally related to anything similar to it, because there is nothing similar to the mind in the world.

In one of his books, Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj has defined the mind in a humorous way as thus: “The mind is something which is really nothing but does everything. This is the mind.” Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj’s definition of the mind is that it is something which is really nothing but does everything. Very interesting! Yet we have to deal with it.

The Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, a wonderful scripture on yoga, gives us a very simple aphoristic instruction on the control of the mind. While in the regulation, discipline, etc., of things outside we seem to move horizontally with things, in the control of the mind we have to move vertically with our own self. We do not move externally as we do in our dealings with the things of the world. This is not a movement outward in relation to things, persons and objects; this is a rise from the lower to the higher.

In the control of the mind we try to raise ourselves from a lower status of consciousness to a higher status. This is an inner transformation that you try to bring about in your own self by an act of what may be rightly called the contemplative process. The discipline of the mind is a process of inward contemplative transformation. Milk becomes curd. The process of milk becoming curd is an inner constitutional transformation of the stuff we call the milk. Someone from outside does not come and command the milk to become curd. An inner transformation takes place.

Thinking in a logical manner, is the first step in the discipline of the mind. Every thought that occurs to your mind should be logically deducible from reasonable premises, which means to say that your ways of thinking should be re-orientated completely. You have to become a new person altogether from today onwards if your intention is to discipline the mind. You alone can discipline your mind; somebody else cannot do it for you. You have to walk with your own legs. Somebody else cannot walk for you.

The objects of the mind are the same as the contents of the mind. The object of the mind is that pattern or shape into which the mind casts itself when it comes in contact with a so-called physical object or even merely a notion. What affects your mind is not the object physically existing outside. What affects your mind is the shape or mould into which the mind is cast. What affects your mind is the mind itself. The world outside, the people around you, the things that are created by God are not the troublemakers, though we are under the impression that all our troubles come from outside persons. The troubles, the pains and the pleasures of our life are ultimately to be equated with the internal transformations that the mind undergoes for reasons which we cannot easily explain at present.

Just as molten lead, molten gold or molten metal cast into a crucible takes the shape of the crucible, the mind takes the shape or the pattern of that particular object to which it is related, with which it is connected, to which it is attached, from which it is repelled, etc. So the discipline and control of the mind is ultimately a process of preventing the mind from casting itself into moulds of various patterns, etc. The mind should contemplate itself.

Aristotle’s definition of God is thought thinking itself – not thought thinking an object. As our intention in the practice of yoga is to grow into the divinity of Godhood, we have to slowly learn the art of freeing the mind from the necessity of casting itself into moulds of empirical characters.

The Bhagavadgita gives us a clue to this process. The senses and the mind are connected with each other. The senses are the channels through which the mind operates in terms of objects. The senses may be said to be the rays of the light which is the mind inside. Just as the rays of the sun emanate in all directions in empty space, the rays of the mind get projected through the apertures of the senses in relation to the objects of desire of the mind.

We have heard it said that we should neither love nor hate. Why should this instruction be given to us? It is because attachments and hatreds are the obverse and reverse of the same coin of connection with things, and the moment the mind is connected with things outside, it is cut off from the infinite source which is its real aim and objective. Finitude is the nature of the mind. Infinitude is its aim and objective. The finite has to rise from its limited existence to the infinite expanse of the Absolute.

(to be continued…)

Excerpts from: Disciplining The Mind by Sri Swami Krishnananda