When we wish to do something constructive, the mind often diverts us here, there and everywhere.
Seeing how forcefully the mind distracts us can be disheartening. While the mind’s force is too strong for us to resist and we need the help of God to overcome it, still we need enough intelligence to seek God’s help. And for that, we need to change our vision of the mind – see it not as too strong, but as too weak. The mind’s strength or, more appropriately stated, its obstinacy comes from its weakness, its vulnerability to the world’s allurements.
Consider a child. On seeing a toy advertised on TV, the child may stubbornly insist on having that toy, and having it immediately. The child’s crying, tantrum-throwing and other such dramatics may be so forceful as to make the mother feel she has no alternative except to give in to the mind’s demand.
Instead, she needs to see her child as too weak, too unintelligent to realize that not everything that looks desirable is essential. Even if the child may still remain just as recalcitrant, but the mother’s firmness will be boosted up when she sees the child as vulnerable and manipulable, and needing her protection. And gradually, by the mother’s firm protection, the child will grow up and understand what is truly important and essential.
Similarly, we can see the mind as gullible – the Bhagavad-gita (06.26) refers to the mind as restless, a describer often used for children. The previous verse (06.25) recommends that we use our intelligence for focusing the mind on our higher purpose.
By thus having the right vision for dealing with the mind, we can determinedly focus it on Krishna, thereby pacifying, purifying and spiritualizing it.
To know more about this verse, please click on the image
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Thank you. Seeing mind as too strong was a kind of discouraging. Your words gave me a new vision.