How to mentor the mind? – Our mind is restless like a child (Bhagavad-gita 06.34). To help it outgrow its fickleness, we need to mentor it. Here are three ways to mentor it effectively. 

Education: This education refers not so much to attending classes or doing courses, but to gaining a well-informed vision of reality (jnana-chakshu). By regularly studying Gita wisdom, we can get our mind to appreciate what is truly meaningful and valuable. Though the mind may presently crave for one sensual thing after another, steady scriptural study will infuse it with the gravitas to analyze and realize that the things which matter the most are the things that last. And because the spiritual lasts forever, it matters the most. 

Association: Despite knowing what is really valuable, the mind can by its illusions create an alternate reality wherein whatever it impulsively fancies is seen as most valuable. To get the mind out of such fantasies, we need to place ourselves with individuals who cherish and relish what is truly valuable. Most empowering is the association of spiritualists. Seeing their taste for higher spiritual things, our mind will start rethinking its petty infatuations. Even if it doesn’t give them up immediately, being in good association will repeatedly remind it that its default actions differ so radically from theirs. Such reminders will have two salutary effects: make it hesitate in acting out its impulses indiscriminately and give it impetus to pursue more meaningful things. 

Purification: Intellectual and social impetuses are most effective when the mind’s tastes evolve from lower to higher. We can accelerate such change by focusing the mind on the all-pure supreme reality, Krishna. That contact will purge the mind of its many impurities which distort its tastes. The more it becomes purified, the more it will relish things connected with all-attractive Krishna, thereby naturally gravitating toward them. 

One-sentence summary:

Mentor the mind by education to appreciate what is valuable, association to desire the valuable and purification to relish the valuable. 

Think it over:

  • How can education mentor the mind?
  • How can association mentor the mind?
  • How can purification  mentor the mind?

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06.34: The mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate and very strong, O Krishna, and to subdue it, I think, is more difficult than controlling the wind.

How to mentor the mind?

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