LET US TRY TO CONTROL....
How may the mind be controlled?
An answer to this question is given by an ancient Rishi. "Not by physical practices may you truly control the mind," he says, "Here are some of the means to control yourself:
- Have Sanga or fellowship with the pure and holy.
- Restrain Trishna or desire.
- Purify your breath.
- Study sant-bani, the words, the teachings of the pure.
Everyone of the senses is to be controlled. Perhaps, most difficult of all is control over the tongue. It is two-fold control – control over (1) taste and (2) speech. Many of us seek the pleasures of the palate. If on a particular day we do not get the food we desire, we feel we have missed something great. There is a subtle connection between addiction to tasty food and sex pleasure. Where you have one, the other is always present. The man who seeks the pleasure of sex or stomach can never find God. Let us, therefore, be careful to see that the food we eat is satvic. Meat, eggs, fish, fowl, food of violence are not satvic. Milk and milk products, cereals, nuts, pulses, lentils are satvic foods. Salads and fresh vegetables – cooked by the sun – are a wholesome, satvic food and do not pollute the taste.
Control over speech is also necessary. We indulge in so much idle and indiscriminate talk. It is a drain on our spiritual energy. So it is that the wise ones either do not speak at all or speak very little. It was Lao Tse, the ancient Chinese sage, who said: "He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know!"
We live in an age of noice: it is also an age of idle talk. We need to utter only one word – the word given by our Guru. Let us repeat it, again and again, until it sinks into our consciousness and becomes audible in our dreams. God Himself uttered but one word. It was a Christian mystic – St. John of the Cross – who said: "The Father uttered one word; that word is His Son, and He utters Him for ever in everlasting silence; and in silence the soul has to hear it." Until the soul hears it, the soul will continue to wander. Jesus gave a very beautiful rule of life to his disciples. "Be silent," he said to them; "and if you need must speak, let your speach be about God!" Let every word you speak, every song you sing, every thought you think, every deed you perform, bear witness to your longing for God.
Contol the tongue. Therefore, always speak the truth! And control the eye. So many of our sins are due to sight. Man's moral and spiritual life is degraded through sight – by going to the picture-house, the theatre, and the ball-room. Rishi of modern India said to a wealthy landlord: "Refrain from seeing obscene plays and attending nautch parties!" They make the eyes impure.
How may we know that our eyes are pure? The man of pure vision – says the Upanishad (1) looks upon another woman as his mother; (2) looks upon another's wealth as earth and stone; and (3) looks upon every being as his own self. He loves everyone as he loves his own self.
The ear must be controlled. Therefore, let us not listen to gossip or idle talk; let us hear only the Name of God and His glories. The senses of smell and touch must be controlled. Therefore, do not sit too near a man who is not pure. Let not an impure person touch you; if an impure person touch you; if possible, let him not even look at you.
The mind must be controlled. For this, two things are necessary. (1) Let there be no evil in your thinking. Drive out an impure thought, the moment it arises, saying: "Get thee behind me, Satan!" (2) And after you have been blessed with the gift of the pure life, do not have the pride of purity. Be ever humble. The purity of the purest amongst us is impurity in the presence of God.
The prana (the vital force) must be controlled. The heart, the hridaya chakra, must be controlled. Let us breath out again and again, the ancient aspiration: "May all my senses grow in purity and in vigour! MayI become an instrument of God's help and healing in this world of suffering and pain!"
I recall the words of the Upanishad: "Difficult, indeed, is self-control! You may drink the ocean dry; the mountain you may uproot; you may swallow fire. But more difficult indeed, is self-control."
The difficult becomes easy when the grace of God or a Satpurusha descends upon us.
(Written by J.P. Vaswani in East and West Series March 2004)
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