The topic for the Hindi Satsang on Sunday, 20th January, 2013 was ‘Mind.’
Following is the transcript of the speech made by Smt. Hansaji Yogendra on the topic.
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“The human mind is a highly developed mind. It can do all kinds of things. The mind has two capacities. One is the intellect, discriminative power (Vivek Buddhi), which can decide what is right and what is wrong, one which we can call the scientific mind. Here emotions are not there, it is clear cut reasoning.
The second capacity of the mind is emotions. Emotions can be positive or negative. Emotions can be extreme, good or bad and even when everything is fine and someone says something that disturbs us, the mind becomes negative. Negative mind drains energy and creates diseases from cancer, heart problems, asthma, diabetes, etc. Negative mind is where there is anxiety, tension, hatred, worry, is sensitive, gets upset when things don’t happen as expected. This kind of mind is a great liability and it is necessary to train it.
If our mind gets disturbed, it means we don’t know how to live. Accept everyone the way they are. If the mind remains positive, where there is faith, joy, confidence, willpower, that mind can take you to the best state and remove all diseases. But the problem with humans is that there are too many desires and no clarity and that distracts the mind.
We have described five kinds of mind here, Mudha (dull), Kshipta (restless), Vikshipta (restless and occasionally concentrated), Ekagra (one-pointed) and Niruddha (thoughtless). These are different levels of the mind. We remain in Mudha and Kshipta and hardly ever reach Ekagra. But even if we are in the Mudha state, that awareness should come that if we get disturbed, it will affect us and nobody else. So we should decide not to get disturbed by others.
Yogis have said that the mind can be the cause of attachments and it can also take us to Moksha (liberation). So what training can we give the mind? Firstly, steady the restless mind. If a horse is galloping too fast, it is difficult to change its direction. The mind and thoughts are running too fast. In the Bhagwad Gita, Arjuna tells Lord Krishna that his mind is so disturbed that controlling it is like trying to catch the air. Krishna answers that he should do yoga and train the mind to become steady. Here Swami Vivekananda has given a good example that if something has fallen in turbid water of a pond, you cannot see where it is. But if you wait till the water settles down, everything will get clear and you will be able to see and remove the object.
So firstly, stop thinking so much. If we don’t allow the mind to become quiet, how will the clarity come? So to quiet the mind, concentrate on the breath, do some Asanas and concentrate on movements with breathing, do Nispandabhava. We have a very wrong notion that intelligent people should keep on thinking and try and solve problems. This leads to waste of energy. Quieten the mind, and it gains strength.
So in your daily routine, make it a point to try and quieten the mind and remove worries and tension every two hours by doing different yoga techniques. There was an experiment carried out where two groups were given the same kind of machine to work on. The machine could work continuously at a time only for 6 hours. So one group kept it on and after 6 hours, shut it down, whereas the other group shut it down every two hours so as to not let the motor heat up too much. The machine of the second group lasted much longer and posed less maintenance problems. Similarly, we are structured to work, but if we learn to switch off regularly in between, our capacity will increase.
Another point Yogis have said is to keep the body and mind together. When brushing your teeth, concentrate on the act. The human mind has tremendous capacity but it gathers worries and tensions from all kinds of places. Keep it busy with the work at hand. A famous engineer of South India, Visvesvaraya said, “If a work is worth doing, it is worth doing well.” He was once travelling by train and had kept his eyes closed. He suddenly got up and pulled the chain. The train stopped and he was asked the reason. He said that somewhere ahead, the railway tracks were broken. He could make out from the different noise the train made on the tracks. Half a kilometer away, they found a gap in the tracks. So learn to use your time well and to live in the present. Neither can you change the past nor control the future, so thinking about it is a waste of time.
So let’s work on ourselves because we will benefit from it.”