If we shouldn’t be disturbed by the mind’s impurities, then how can we beat the mind?

by Chaitanya CharanJune 15, 2014

Asked in relationship with this Gita-daily article:

Be not alarmed by the presence of impurities; be heartened by the presence of the alarm

Prabhuji, this beautiful explanation of text 18.38 removes some of the misgivings but how to connect it with the words of Srila Bhakti Sidhanta Goswami Prabhupada that one must thrash the mind in the morning with a shoe  and at night thrash the heart with broomstick 100 times each for purification?

Your Servant,
B.K.Mehta
Transcribed by: Geetanjali Nath

Question: from Micky mehta prabhu, when we say that Bhakti Vinod Thakura said that beat the mind with the broom and with a shoe , thrash it hundred times in a day , in the morning , in the evening for purification, so you have  mentioned in one of the Gita daily articles, that we should not be alarmed by the presence of the impurities, we should be heartened by the presence of the alarm. So how do we reconcile these two ?

Answer:There is no contradiction necessarily, the point is that when the impurities come in the mind, we have the choice , whether to be just complacent or indulgent or on an alert.So if we are not on the alert, then naturally the mind will trick us . but if you are on the alert, then you will be protected. so all of this is talking about is that we should not become disheartened. So just because the mind starts coming up with the nasty ideas , we should not put aside the broom and the or the shoe and capitulate the mind. If you become unduly alarmed by what the mind does , we may think that the mind is incourajable, the mind is irresistible, the mind is impossible to anything to do anything about. and will just go along with the mind. But if we recognize that actually we have the potential, we have the capacity , now that we have become alert, now we can choose the next step correctly. We can recognize that, ok, something went wrong and something has gone wrong in the sense that some impurities have come in my mind, but there is no need to become alarmed, in the sense of becoming panicky , or dejected or fatalistic,/ It simply means that we , the alarm should make us alert, and alert means that we become active and be aggressively counter the impurities. That means we pick up the broom and pick up the shoe and start pounding the impurities out of the consciousness, out of the mind . So in fact the import of this Gita was same as of Bhaki Vinod Thakura’s instruction, with the additional point that , we should become alert wjen we notice that the mind is misleading ius and we should pound the mind when it starts misleading us, we should not become alarmed but we should become alert. Becoming alarmed means we would not even pound, we may become hysterical or we can become panic and give up, that is undesirable and that should not be done.

Thank you

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