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Chapter 6
CONTROL OF THE MIND
27. How To Attain One-Pointedness Of Mind?
10. Day and night, this frightening samsara is always surging around us, within and without. Even our prayers are for some material gain. There is no longing to become one with the Lord, forgetting samsara at least for a moment. Our prayer is nothing but a show. When such is the mental state, sitting cross legged and closing the eyes is bound to be in vain. As the mind is disposed to get distracted all the time by the things without, a man’s strength is completely sapped. He loses any kind of discipline and controlling power. We are witnessing this state of affairs at every step in our country. Truly, India is a land of spirituality. It is believed that her people live at the high altitude of spirituality. Still, how pitiable is our condition! It is painful to see us engaged in hair-splitting over trivial matters. Our minds are always immersed in such matters. ‘कथा पुराण ऐकतां। झोपें नाडिलें तत्वतां॥ खाटेवरि पडतां। व्यापी चिंता तळमळ॥ ऐसी गहन कर्मगति। काय तयासी रडती॥’ (‘While listening to the narration of epics and stories from mythology, sleep overtakes us; but when in bed, anxieties keep us awake. Such is the inscrutable way of karma—actions accumulated in the present and the earlier lives. What is the use of shedding tears over it?’) The mind is either focused on nothing or is focused on too many things at the same time, but it is never fixed on one single object. Man is such a slave to the senses. Once a gentleman asked me, “Why is it said that the eyes should only be half-open while meditating?” I replied, “I give you a simple answer. If the eyes are fully closed, one is likely to go to sleep and if they are kept wide open, attention would be diverted and there would be no concentration. Proneness to sleep when the eyes are closed is tamas and the diversion of attention when the eyes are open is rajas. Therefore, an intermediate state has been prescribed.” In short, there cannot be concentration of mind without change in its disposition. The disposition of mind should be pure. This cannot be attained merely by sitting in particular postures. All our worldly activities should be purified for this purpose. This requires a change in the goal of those activities. We should not engage in them for our own personal gains or for satisfying baser instincts and desires, or for any material purpose. |
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