Mind and Meditation

The concept regarding mind is understood in many different ways by many cultural and religious traditions. There is no fixed definition of mind and about its distinguishing properties. It is a non-tangible part of human body that thinks, feels, and choose. 

The mind is the faculty of man's reasoning and thoughts. It has the power of imagination, recognition, estimate, and process the feelings and emotions. 

Our mind determines the actions of the body. Also the mind being constantly active creates within us liking for the one and dislike for the other, introducing the two extremities of a thing. Thus miseries come into existence. 

This is all the creation of the human mind which results from our ignorance of the right relationship of things. Our passions, emotions and impulses too contribute a good deal in aggregating the troubles and at times cause fierce tempest strong enough to threaten a complete wreck. We generally attribute its causes to circumstances. But it is a wrong notion.

Mind is the center of this outer expansion of man in the form of human body and everything which is exhibited through the medium of the body proceeds from the centre, the mind. If our mind comes to a harmonious state, circumstances and environments will have no effect on it and there will be no disturbance within.

Every evil has its origin in the mind and which alone is, therefore, responsible for it, though at the same time that it is the very same mind that leads us to virtue and also helps us to realise our highest self. So it is not every evil alone that proceeds from the mind but also every good. 

Hence those who condemn it in the bitterest terms have no justification for it at all. It is really only due to the defective molding of the mind, and what is actually required is not the crushing or the killing of the mind but merely its proper training. 

The mind is like the pendulum of the clock. The clock goes all right so long as the movement of the pendulum is regulated. If it is disturbed the clock is out of order. Similarly for this human clock it is necessary that the movement of the mind will be regulated and adjusted. 

Really we have spoiled the mind ourselves by allowing it to wander about aimlessly during leisure hours. The practice has continued for years and it has now become almost its second nature. If we now try to control the mind by putting it under restraint we meet with little success. The more we try to suppress it by force, the more it rebounds and counteracts causing greater disturbance. 

The methods to mould the mind and regulate its activities are also very simple. The proper method to control the activities of the mind is to fix it on one sacred thought just as we do in meditation, and dispel from it everything unwanted or superfluous. 

In course of time after constant practice, the mind gets disciplined and regulated and much of the inner disturbance is eliminated. The best course to free ourselves from unwanted ideas is to treat them as uninvited guests and remain unmindful of them. They will then wither away like unwatered plants and ultimately the same sacred thought will remain predominant.

The only way to accomplish it is, therefore, meditation under the guidance of a capable Master. By constant practice in meditation the mind will become calm and peaceful and the unwanted ideas will cease to trouble us.

In meditation we are not suspending the mind but moulding its multifarious activities. We do not want to stop its normal working but only to bring it to a regulated and disciplined state. If the activities of the mind are stopped from the very beginning, we probably do not stand in need of practicing meditation at all. Meditation is the only process to achieve that end. Concentration is its natural result in due course.

The proper method is to meditate all along remaining quite unmindful of the foreign ideas and thoughts coming to our mind during that time. Mental struggle to keep off the unwanted ideas often proves unsuccessful for it causes a strong reaction which is often impossible for man of ordinary capabilities to overcome and which is sometimes likely to result in serious mental disturbances or even insanity.

It may be possible for those who by leading a life of celibacy have gained sufficient ojas to cope successfully with the flow of thoughts and to withstand the effect of their reaction, but for ordinary man it is almost an impossibility.

If instead of struggling to keep off ideas we only remain unmindful of them, very soon they will lose their effect and cease troubling us. They will then be only like dogs barking after a caravan which goes forward without paying any heed to them. When we are attentive to ideas to check them, concentration is naturally there which breeds power and thus they become stronger.

To know more about Capable Master, Meditation and its practice, please go through the previous articles of this website under spirituality.

A collection from the writings of Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj of Shajahanpur by Sri B.E.Sampath Kumar, abhyasi, Sri Ramchandraji Seva trust, Kadapa.