Focus on the mind before focusing on its focus
Suppose we were studying in a library and our neighbor repeatedly pointed our attention here and there, mostly towards unimportant things and only occasionally towards [...]
Meditation is defined by not just the mode of thinking, but also the object of thought
Some people think that meditation refers to deep thinking about any subject. While the word ‘meditation’ may be used thus in a conversational sense, meditation [...]
Don’t analyze the trash – just trash it
Suppose we inherit an old uninhabited house containing much trash. We might wonder where all that trash came from. But we wouldn’t spend too much [...]
If Krishna is not our goal, we hit self-goals
We all want success and happiness. But just the desire or even the ability to succeed is not enough – we need to have the [...]
Protesting that the mind is wandering is progress over wandering with the mind
When we start practicing spiritual life and try to fix the mind on Krishna, we may become disheartened at how frequently and forcefully the mind [...]
The mind seduces us into doing wrong – and then scolds us for doing wrong
Suppose we have a tyrannical boss who tells us first to do something that doesn’t make sense and then castigates us for having acted senselessly. [...]
To beat problems, first beat the problematic mind down to size
When an army is fighting a war, it depends on its intelligence – its information sources – to know the strength of the enemy. But [...]
See through the mind’s troika of denial, misdirection and self-victimization
The mind often sabotages us by making us do foolish things. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (06.06) cautions that the mind can be our enemy. The mind [...]
Our conviction that happiness is our right is right
We all long for happiness and are deeply convinced that we have a right to be happy. But this conviction runs contrary to our lived [...]
The mind is a universe – not everything in it is relevant
The universe’s vastness and our smallness render irrelevant much of what happens in the universe. We don’t let, say, a comet shooting through the solar [...]
Scriptural regulation is productive, not restrictive
Suppose a gold-seeker digs at a place where there’s no gold and is told by a geologist to not dig there. Is such a direction [...]
The available becomes valuable when it becomes accessible
Suppose we come to know of a powerful feature in our phone. That feature was always available, but to us it was just an icon [...]
Don’t let the mind make you fight more battles than you need to
If soldiers while fighting a battle agonize about a reversal in yesterday’s battle or worry about the danger in tomorrow’s battle, they will undermine their [...]
Don’t relax the treatment just because the symptoms have disappeared
When germs of a deadly disease such as tuberculosis infect us and give rise to manifest symptoms of sickness, we take treatment immediately and diligently. [...]
Let scripture lead beyond the head’s complexity to the heart’s simplicity
The heart’s simplicity refers to, in the context of spiritual life, the simple love of the heart for Krishna, the uncomplicated faith that just by [...]
Check the train before you check into it
Suppose an inattentive person on a huge, noisy, crowded railway station boards a wrong train. Some trains may stop after a few minutes, but some, [...]
If we don’t recognize the mind, it will make us unrecognizable to ourselves
Recognizing the mind means to recognize the voice coming from within us to be the voice of the mind and not our own voice. When [...]
Absorption is a function of not just attraction but also determination
Sometimes during our devotional practices we may find our mind slipping away to other things that we are more attracted to and may wonder, “How [...]
If we let the mind fill in the blanks, it will overwrite the sentence
We all have during our schedules certain slots that are filled with obligatory engagements and certain slots that are freer. Though we may have lots [...]
The mind is illusion’s internal advertising agent
Much of today’s materialistic culture runs through advertising. Most multinational companies often spend far more on product promotion than on quality control. Advertising agents are [...]
Absent-minded means not that the mind is absent, but that our control on it is absent
In common parlance, the word ‘mind’ refers to one’s attention, as in, “Give your full mind to what you are doing.” In the Bhagavad-gita’s philosophical [...]