Manah (mind) part 2

We have to control these great six natures of us, speaking, mind, anger, greed for
eating, hunger, and the urge of sex. Sri Rupa Goswami said if somebody succeeds
in controlling them, he can control everything, even the whole world. If we
succeed to control our mind, then we can do anything, whatever we want. Most of
the time in our life, we are facing the illusions for our unstable mind. We can see a
snake in a rope. For that, Shastra said to us, we should focus our mind on the point
of our Supreme Goal, for that we have to control our mind. The eternal desire of
the Jivas is happiness, “sukham me bhuyat, duhkham me maa bhut….” But we are searching eternal happiness in this material world, and then we are tasting material
pleasure instead of eternal happiness, bliss, chidananda.
In our Sadhanaa also the mind is a great factor. There are three great ways
(paths) to achieve The Supreme Goal. Gyana path, Yoga path and Bhakti path. In
Gyana path, the Sadhaka has to be renounced and he has to reject everything from
this material world in his mind. “ na iti, na iti..” in that way he has to think that all
these material objects do not belong to him. This is the work of the mind, that
means, first you control your mind, and then you reject all these material desires ,
then you will realize Chidaananda. In path of Yoga, there is also something like
that. In the Swetaswatar Upanishada it has been nicely explained this theme of the
path of Yoga. “dwaa suparnaa sayuja shaakhaayaa samaanam briksham
parisasyayate…” There is nicely explained, two birds, one is Paramaatma and the
other Jivaatmaa, they are seated in the same branch in the tree of our body, deha
briksha. The Jivaatma bird is taking and eating all the fruits, happiness and
distress, from that tree where they are seated, but the Paramaatma bird is not, He is
like a witness and a viewer of the activities of the Jivaatmaa. When Jivaatma
realizes that, after taking all the fruits from this tree he is still unhappy, and that the
other bird didn’t take anything but is happy, then the Jivaatma will get the
realization of Paramaatma. All this process goes through the mind. In the Bhakti
path, it is said that first you should focus your mind in your ultimate goal. With an
unstable mind nothing will happen, nothing good for the material duty, nor for the
eternal duty, Sadhanaa. But how will we control it? Shastra says so many things,
but I think Adi Shankaracharya explained the conclusion in His Moha Mudgar…
“Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam, Govindam Bhaja mudhamate” O stupid mind! Worship Govinda, Govinda abd only Govinda.