Screen what appears on your inner screen – Learn to manage the mind

[Congregation program at Washington DC, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
What I spoke today, the topic was screen what appears on our inner screen. So I started by talking about how the 15.8 and 9 in the Gita, if there is a inner, there is a big screen on which five doors closed circuit TV input is coming in, like that the mind is a big screen on which the inputs from the five senses are coming. And the right window should zoom up so that we can function properly.
But sometimes the wrong window zooms up and that can cause us to misfunction, malfunction. So the inner window, inner screen is the mind, we are the soul and the outer world is what we are perceiving. Now we don’t respond to the outer world, we respond to the mental representation of the outer world.
We don’t see a desert, if an inner screen, a mirage, a water appears, which is after it. Sati was Daksha’s daughter, but in his mind, she appeared as the wife of his enemy. And he responded to that.
So all of us, we can find our sometimes mood swinging. The mood swing because something appears on our inner screen, and we get carried away with it. It’s like a child who is happy at one moment, and then starts watching a horror movie and becomes horrified.
There is like the wheelchair, I said, it started moving and nobody noticed it. So like that, we just, there is the mind, it doesn’t just give an image, it gives a movie. Some image, if you focus on it, it starts off a movie and just takes us somewhere else.
And doesn’t just give a movie, which is just changing images, but also gives a commentary. The commentary is normally meant to explain better what is happening on the field. But the mind’s commentary sometimes disconnects us from the field completely.
So somebody doesn’t pick up a phone call, and I start thinking this person doesn’t love me, and I may become suicidal because of such a small thing. So the stimulus has to elicit a response. But if we get carried away by the mind’s depiction of things, the small stimulus can elicit a terrible response.
We identify with the mind so much that we don’t even notice where the mind is going. Like a person watching a TV game, and the TV is being stolen, that person keeps watching the game and goes all of it. So we need to learn to screen what appears on our inner screen.
In generically, the mind, what it does is, if it goes towards the past, it puts us into depression. If it goes into the future, it puts us into anxiety. And suicide is basically where the mind is killing the body.
So if we don’t learn to screen what appears on the inner screen, the consequences can even be that serious. And how do we learn to screen? Through intelligence and through transcendence. In some cases, analysis can come first, and then the devotion can come.
Means we have our intelligence alert. This is what is happening. The mind is carrying me away.
Take shelter of Krishna. Or sometimes, if we just take shelter of Krishna, then the dharmi buddhi yoga, Krishna uses the intelligence, then we can deal with it. So sometimes bhakti can itself become a mechanical or ritual activity.
And when that happens, when bhakti becomes a mechanical activity, then we will not be able to perceive the change, the empowerment that comes to bhakti. When we are chanting, unless we stay tuned to the holy name, chanting can be the time when the mind’s movies distract us the most. So if you understand that, this is the time when I have to connect with Krishna, raise my consciousness through the physical to the spiritual level, not get sidetracked by the mental level, then the chanting will become our default instinct.
So whenever we feel fearful or negative rather than getting carried away, we will take shelter of Krishna and we will learn how to respond. So the Bhagavad Gita talks about sakshi bhav and seva bhav. Sakshi bhav is observing and analyzing.
Seva bhav is serving. So we ultimately need the conviction that I am the servant of Krishna. I am meant to serve Krishna.
Just like a child watching a horror movie getting carried away, the child just gets hold of the mother. So if we catch hold of Krishna, then we will find that the mind’s agitation will go down, we will become much calmer and then we will respond to external situations much better. Thank you very much.
Any comments, Mataji? Comments, corrections?