The mind may be viewed to be constituted by five basic components: manas, ahamkara, citta, buddhi and atman, which cannot be reduced to gross elements. Manas is the lower mind which collects sense impressions. Its perceptions shift from moment to moment. Swami Vivekananda's quotes on the mind emphasize that our thoughts shape who we become, and the mind's control is essential for spiritual growth and achieving our goals. Key themes include the mind's power to both limit and empower us, the importance of concentration and discipline, and the idea that true freedom lies in separating oneself from the mind's identification and recognizing one's true self as the soul.
THE MONKEY MIND Patanjali says you have something permanent with you and that is called “The Monkey Mind.” It is compared to a monkey drunk with the wine of desire, stung by the scorpion of jealousy, and possessed with the demon of pride. Lust, greed, jealousy, anger, ego, tensions, reactions, grudges, depression, stress, and strain are the symptoms of this mind. We suffer from these because we gave all the powers to the mind and made it our master. We are happy when the mind is cheerful. We are depressed when the mind is gloomy. We are at the mercy of the mind that waxes and wanes. We consider ourselves nothing but mind. WHAT IS MIND monkey-mind Mind is what you make it with your thoughts. Mind is matter. It has no power of its own. Your thoughts create your mind. Every thought, emotion, or word produces a strong vibration in every cell of the body and leaves a strong impression there. If you entertain healthy thoughts, you can keep good health. If you hold on to sickly thoughts in the mind, you can never expect good health, beauty, and harmony. If the mind is healthy, the body will be healthy. Remember that the body is a product of the mind. If you hold on to vigorous thoughts, your body too will be vigorous. Thoughts of love, peace, contentment, purity, perfection, and divinity will make you, and others around you, perfect and divine. Otherwise, we will be the victim of mental and heart diseases. TRAIN THE MIND The human mind functions within a certain field. Your mind works only within the boundaries of the field of whatever you have previously heard, seen, thought of, or imagined. Maharishi Patanjali says that you can cross that field by training your mind, and all its faculties, so that you can go beyond. According to Maharishi Patanjali, the mind (Chitta) is made up of three faculties – Manas (Mind & Memory), Buddhi (Intellect), and Ahamkara (Ego). Manas are the recording faculty, which receives impressions gathered by the senses from the outside world. Buddhi is the discriminative faculty, which classifies these impressions and reacts to them. Ahamkara is the ego-sense, which claims these impressions as its own and stores them up as individual knowledge. HOW TO TRAIN THE MIND That monkey mind always gets in your way and creates barriers for you. One day it helps you to understand something, and then the next day, you undo the same thing. One moment you think you have known something; after half an hour, the same mind will say you have not known anything. Sometimes, you think you are going toward insanity; sometimes, you think you are doing very well. That monkey mind comes between you and realization. There is no attempt, however, to control the mind; the idea is to go beyond it through meditation. Meditation is where thoughts get dissolved naturally, enhancing your concentration power, memory power, will power, right thinking, and fitness power, automatically. Meditation is neither a mental exercise nor a practice. It is a direct and natural process beyond mind itself. MEDITATION The mind is always full of all types of thoughts. It continues like this from birth to death because there is no switch to turn it off. Meditation helps in controlling the mind. By doing regular meditation, it is possible to put a switch on the mind and turn it off when it is not needed. In fact, it teaches us how to manage the mind just by witnessing it through neutral energy. It is not interfering with the intricacies and doings of mind. Just remain a non-doer and directly watch the thoughts neutrally, without any judgment, analyses, participation, visualization, imagination, contemplation, suppression, repression, condemnation, or concentration. To watch is our true nature. It is a natural, non-doing state. No effort is required to watch. We all have full potential to look within, as we all are blessed with the ‘Third Eye’. It is not forcing the mind to be quiet; it is to find the quiet that is there already. TECHNIQUE Adopt any comfortable sitting position… Close the eyes… Relax your body part by part mentally… Be still… Withdraw the mind from the outside world… Direct the mind within oneself towards breathing… Breathe slowly, deeply, and regularly… If thoughts come into your mind from time to time, just go on watching those thoughts …. Do not identify with them… Do not get friendly with them…Do not argue with them… They will go away…Keep a distance from the thoughts… Feel that thoughts are yours but you are not the thought… Just like your shadow is yours but you are not the shadow… just keep deleting all the undesirable thoughts… Do not let those thoughts come back to you… (It is like watching a film. If we do not like the film, we do not remember the story. As soon as we come out of the cinema hall, we forget the story because we don’t need it)… If we do not, it means that we are carrying an extra burden in our mind and that makes our mind weak and diseased, mentally, as well as physically… Give your conscious mind a rest…. There is a state of mind where you have no thought…Only consciousness remains… If you can experience this state, you can experience strength, power, creativity, courage, confidence, decisiveness, and happiness … This is Pure Existence. CONCLUSION With more and more meditations, monkey mind starts learning to be silent. Once it knows, that by being silent it becomes powerful, energetic, and positive – and then the mind is a good servant of immense power in the hands of silence. Then the being is the master and master can use the mind whenever it is needed and can switch it off whenever it is not needed. There used to be an anecdote: THE GURU SAID THE SISHYA, WHEN IN MEDITATION, NEVER THINK ABOUT MONKEY; AND THE SISHYA COULD NOT MEDITATE AT ALL ,ALL THE DAY; SINCE, EVERY TIME HE STARTED, MONKEY ALONE APPEARED IN MIND. MIND IF BALANCED WHAT SHALL HAPPEN? यं हि न व्यथयन्त्येते पुरुषं पुरुषर्षभ । समदुःखसुखं धीरं सोऽमृतत्वाय कल्पते ॥१५॥ yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete puruṣaṁ puruṣarṣabha sama-duḥkha-sukhaṁ dhīraṁ so 'mṛtatvāya kalpate O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in both is certainly eligible for liberation. vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18) Harim āśrayeta. The real business is harim āśrayeta. Vanaṁ gataḥ. Vanaṁ gataḥ means go to the forest. Formerly, after gṛhastha life, vānaprastha life, sannyāsa life, they used to live in the forest. But going to the forest is not the main purpose of life. Because in the forest there are many animals. Does it mean they are advancing in spiritual life? That is called markaṭa-vairāgya. Markaṭa-vairāgya means "monkey renunciation." Monkey is naked. Nāga-bābā. Naked. And eats fruit, monkey, and lives underneath a tree or on the tree. But he has got at least three dozen wives. So this markaṭa-vairāgya, this kind of renunciation, has no value. Real renunciation. Real renunciation means you have to give up the andha-kūpa life and take shelter of Kṛṣṇa, harim āśrayeta. If you take shelter of Kṛṣṇa, then you can give up this, all this "ism" life. Otherwise, it is not possible; you'll be entrapped by this "ism" life. So hitvātma-pātaṁ gṛham andha-kūpaṁ vanaṁ gato yad dharim āśrayeta (SB 7.5.5). Not to give up . . . if you give up something, you must take up something. Otherwise, you will be disturbed. Take up. That is recommendation: paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). You can give up your family life, social life, political life, this life, that life when you take Kṛṣṇa conscious life. Otherwise, it is not possible. Otherwise, you must have to take some of this life. There is no question of your freedom. There is no question of freedom from anxieties. This is the way. K Rajaram IRS 11225 On Mon, 1 Dec 2025 at 09:40, Jambunathan Iyer <[email protected]> wrote: > The mind flits fast from one idea to another; it fondles for a moment and > forsakes it the very next moment. > > *Did You feel that you can keep the mind shut?* > > Yes I can. My study on Life pattern taught me that I can manage my > thoughts and control the mind through meditation and dedicated prayer. > > I believe at the first level we can manage to keep our mouths shut, but it > is next to impossible to keep the mind shut. The mind is of that nature; it > is woven so, out of the yarn of desire. Its characteristic is to flutter > and flit, hither and thither, through the outlets of senses, into the > external world of colour, sound, taste, smell, and touch. However by > practice to control the thought , meditation can be tamed and put to good > use by man. If we keep it engaged in good pursuits and good adventures, > particularly in the contemplation of the Universal, the Absolute, the > Eternal, that is to say, God, then it will not go astray and land man in > ruin; for God is the source of undying strength, of everlasting joy and > unfathomable wisdom. > > மனம் ஒரு யோசனையிலிருந்து இன்னொரு யோசனைக்கு வேகமாகப் பறந்து செல்கிறது; அது > ஒரு கணம் அன்பாகப் பழகி, அடுத்த கணமே அதைக் கைவிட்டுவிடுகிறது. > > *மனதை மூடி வைத்திருக்க முடியும் என்று நீங்கள் உணர்ந்தீர்களா?* > > ஆம் என்னால் முடியும். வாழ்க்கை முறை பற்றிய எனது ஆய்வு, தியானம் மற்றும் > அர்ப்பணிப்புள்ள பிரார்த்தனை மூலம் என் எண்ணங்களை நிர்வகிக்கவும் மனதைக் > கட்டுப்படுத்தவும் முடியும் என்பதைக் கற்றுக் கொடுத்தது. > > முதல் நிலையில் நம் வாயை மூடி வைத்திருக்க முடியும் என்று நான் நம்புகிறேன், > ஆனால் மனதை மூடி வைத்திருப்பது கிட்டத்தட்ட சாத்தியமற்றது. மனம் அந்த > இயல்புடையது; அது ஆசையின் நூலிலிருந்து நெய்யப்பட்டது. அதன் சிறப்பியல்பு > என்னவென்றால், புலன்களின் வெளிகள் வழியாக, நிறம், ஒலி, சுவை, மணம் மற்றும் > தொடுதல் ஆகியவற்றின் வெளிப்புற உலகிற்குள், இங்கும் அங்கும் படபடத்து, > மிதப்பது. இருப்பினும், சிந்தனையைக் கட்டுப்படுத்தும் பயிற்சியின் மூலம், > தியானத்தை மனிதனால் அடக்கி நல்ல பயன்பாட்டிற்குக் கொண்டுவர முடியும். நாம் அதை > நல்ல நோக்கங்களிலும் நல்ல சாகசங்களிலும், குறிப்பாக பிரபஞ்சம், முழுமையான, > நித்தியமான, அதாவது கடவுளைப் பற்றிய சிந்தனையில், ஈடுபடுத்தினால், அது வழிதவறி > மனிதனை அழிவில் ஆழ்த்தாது; ஏனெனில் கடவுள் அழியாத வலிமைக்கும், நித்திய > மகிழ்ச்சிக்கும், அளவிட முடியாத ஞானத்திற்கும் ஆதாரமாக இருக்கிறார். > > > *N Jambunathan , Chennai " What you get by achieving your goals is not as > important as what you become by achieving your goals. If you want to live a > happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things "* > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZoo5QH4Bp__TkjGzWwUhqfV-ikVbsHZ44kOc9Vk7-auYdQ%40mail.gmail.com.
