He who has controlled his mind is really happy and free. Physical freedom is no freedom at all. If you are easily carried away by surging emotions and impulses, if you are under the grip of moods, cravings and passions, how can you be really happy, O sweet beloved child! You are like a rudderless boat. You are tossed about hither and thither like a piece of straw in the vast expanse of the ocean. You laugh for five minutes and weep for five hours. What can wife, son, friends, money, fame and power do for you, when you are under the sway of the impulses of your mind? He is the true hero who has controlled his mind. There is an adage: “He who has controlled his mind has controlled the world.” True victory is over the mind. That is real freedom. Thorough rigorous discipline and self-imposed restrictions will eventually eradicate all desires, thoughts, impulses cravings and passions. Only then and not until then can you expect to be free from the thraldom of the mind. You should not give any leniency to the mind. The mind is a mischievous imp. Curb it by drastic measures. Become a perfect Yogi. Money cannot give you freedom. Freedom is not a commodity that can be purchased in the Crawford Market. It is a rare hidden treasure guarded by a five-hooded serpent. Unless you kill or tame this serpent, you cannot have access to this treasure. That treasure is Spiritual Wealth, that is Freedom, that is Bliss. The serpent is your mind. The five-hoods are the five senses through which the mind-serpent hisses.
Rajasic mind always wants new things. It wants variety. It gets disgusted with monotony. It wants change of place, change of food, change, in short, of everything. But you should train the mind to stick to one thing. You should not complain of monotony. You should have patience, adamantine will and untiring persistence. Then only you can succeed in Yoga. He who wants something new always is quite unfit for Yoga. You should stick to one place, one spiritual preceptor, one method and one system of Yoga. That is the way to positive success.
You should have real and intense thirst for God-realisation. Then all obstacles will be obviated. Concentration will be quite easy for you then. Mere emotional bubbling for the time being out of sheer curiosity or for attaining psychic powers cannot bring any tangible result.
If you are careless, if you are irregular in concentration, if your dispassion (Vairagva) wanes, if you give up the practice for some days on account of laziness, the adverse forces will take you away from the true path of Yoga. You will be stranded. It will be difficult for you to rise up again to the original height. Therefore be regular in concentration.
Be cheerful and happy. Away with depression and gloom. There is nothing more infectious than depression. A depressed and gloomy man can radiate only unpleasant and morbid vibrations all around; he cannot radiate joy, peace and love. Therefore never come out of your room, if you are depressed and gloomy lest you should spread the contagion all around you. Live only to be a blessing to others. Radiate joy, love and peace. Depression eats the very core of your being and havocs like a canker. It is verily a deadly plague. Depression manifests on account of some disappointment or failure, severe dyspepsia or heated debates, wrong thinking or wrong feeling. Separate yourself from this negative feeling and identify yourself with the Supreme Being. Then no external influence can affect you. You will be invulnerable. Drive the feeling of depression and bloom at once by enquiry, singing divine songs, prayers, chanting of OM, Pranayama a brisk walk in the open air, thinking of the opposite quality viz., the feeling of joy. Try to be happy in all states and radiate joy only towards all around you.
Why do you weep, my child? Remove the bandage from your eyes and see now. You are surrounded by truth and truth alone. All is Light and Bliss only. The cataract of ignorance has blurred your vision. Extract the cataract immediately. Put on a new pair of glasses by developing the inner eye of wisdom through regular practice of concentration.
It is not thought alone that determines action. There are some intelligent people who think reasonably on the pros and cons of a thing but when the time comes they are led astray by temptations. They do wrong actions and repent later on. It is the feeling that really goads man to action. Some psychologists lay special stress on imagination and say that it is imagination that really determines action. They bring the following illustration in support of their view. Suppose a long plank 1 foot broad is placed between two turrets each 20 feet high. When you begin to walk on this plank, you imagine that you will fall down and so you actually fall down. Whereas you are able to walk on the same plank when placed on the ground. Suppose you go on a bicycle along a narrow lane. You see a big stone on the way. You imagine that you will hit the cycle against the stone; and so you actually run the cycle against the stone. Some other psychologists say that it is the will that determines an action. Will can do everything. Will is soul-force. Vedantins are of this latter opinion.
Now to come back to the subject of concentration proper: The waves in the mind caused by thought-forms are called Vrittis. These waves must be stilled or stopped. Then only you can realise the Soul. A well-trained mind can be fixed at will upon any object either inside or outside to the exclusion of all else. The practice of concentration is a bit disgusting in the beginning but it will give you immense happiness after sometime. Patience and perseverance are essential. Regularity is also necessary. The mind is compared in the Hindu Sastras to a lake or ocean. The thoughts arising from the mind are compared to the waves of the ocean. You can see your reflection clearly on the waters of the ocean only when all the waves on the surface subside completely and become still. So also you can realise the Soul, the Light of lights, only when all the thought-waves in the mind-lake are stilled.
If you take interest in the practice of concentration, and if you have a definite purpose, you will have remarkable progress in concentration. Some medical students leave the medical college soon after joining as they find it disgusting to wash the pus in ulcers and wounds and dissect dead bodies. Is it not a serious blunder? In the beginning, no doubt, it is loathsome; but after studying pathology, medicine, operative surgery, morbid anatomy, bacteriology and so on, the course becomes very interesting in the final year. When they begin to get some knowledge of medicine, diagnosis and treatment, and when they begin to think of the prospects of earning much money after qualifying themselves as doctors, they begin to evince great interest in the line.
Many spiritual aspirants leave off the practice of concentration after sometime as they find it difficult to practice it. In this they commit a grave blunder like the medical students. In the beginning of the practice, when you struggle hard to get over body-consciousness, it will be disgusting and troublesome. But in the third year of the practice the mind will become cool, pure and strong. The neophyte will find great interest in the practice, when he gets some psychic experiences such as brilliant lights, hearing of celestial sounds, smelling of rare scents, and so on, and when he begins to think of the prospects of becoming a fully developed Yogi.
Some people can concentrate on pleasant or interesting objects only. If they can create interest in unpleasant things also they can do good concentration on uninteresting things as well. When the rays of the mind are gathered and collected by practice, the mind becomes concentrated and you get Ananda from within. When you meet an old friend of yours after six years, the happiness you get is not, as is generally supposed from the friend, but from within yourself. The mind becomes concentrated for the time being and you get happiness from within your own self. The sum total of pleasures of the whole world is nothing when compared to the bliss derived through concentration and meditation. Do not give up the practice of concentration at any cost. Plod on. Have patience, perseverance, cheerfulness, tenacity and application. You will eventually succeed. Nil desperandum. Sri Sankaracharya writes in his commentary on the Chhandogya Upanishad: “A man’s duty consists in the control of the senses and concentration of the mind.” (Ch. VII-x-xii). Find out by serious introspection the various impediments that act as stumbling blocks in your concentration and remove them with effort one by one. Do not allow new thoughts (Sankalpas) and desires (Vasanas) to crop up. Nip them in the bud through discrimination, enquiry, concentration and meditation.
Everybody possesses some ability to concentrate. Everybody does concentrate to a certain extent when he reads a book, when he writes a letter, when he plays tennis and, in fact, when he does any kind of work. But for spiritual purposes concentration should be developed to an infinite degree. The mind is like an unchained monkey. It has the power of attending to one object only at a time, although it is able to pass from one object to another with tremendous speed, so rapidly, in fact, that some hold that it could grasp several things at a time. But the best philosophers and seers, Eastern and Western, hold to the “single idea” theory as being correct. It agrees with one’s daily experience as well. The mind is ever restless. This is due to the force of Rajas or passion. Concentration is necessary for success in material affairs. A man with an appreciable degree of concentration has more earning capacity and turns out more work in less time. Need I say that the Yogic student will be amply rewarded for his effort in concentration?
