Suppose we are working in a team with someone who keeps interrupting us. And what they suggest is mostly distracting at best and disastrous at worst. If we don’t interrupt them, they will take unilateral decisions that will hurt us. To stay on track, we will need to interrupt them.  

We all are teamed up with an inner chatterbox, our own mind. It gives continuous commentary about what we are doing, what we should be doing, what is happening around us, what should be happening and so forth. Even when we are doing something important and are trying to concentrate, our mind unhesitatingly interrupts us. If we let the mind convert the inner dialogue into a monologue,  we will become silent spectators in discussions that will take our life on a self-destructive course. 

To stay on track, we need to unhesitatingly interrupt the mind. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (06.25) urges us to refocus the mind whenever and wherever it wanders. The Gita doesn’t unrealistically ask that we not let our mind wander at all; the mind is too restless to stay focused. But we can be self-aware enough to interrupt the mind and refocus. In fact, self-mastery begins with cutting off the mind before its nonsense makes us do nonsense.

Of course, before we can interrupt the mind, we need to realize that it has interrupted us. To be alert enough to realize that, we need to have something worthwhile that we want to do. That purposeful focus will ensure that we won’t entertain the mind’s interruption unless it has something meaningful to say. 

Gita wisdom empowers us with a devotional purpose centered on harmony with our essential nature and our ultimate source. That purpose can attract and absorb our consciousness, thereby blocking out the mind’s incessant and irrelevant chatter. 

Think it over:

  • How does the mind interrupt us? 
  • How can we interrupt the mind?
  • What are the typical thought-trains of the mind that you need to interrupt? How can you interrupt them?

***

06.26 From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the Self.

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