Bhagavatam-daily 136 – 11.09.11 – Strive for mind control while doing spiritual practices

Thank you breath and jita asana so here the word jita normally means conquered and it may seem a little odd to use the word jita, conquer to be used with asana or swasam do we really conquer our posture or do we conquer our breath yes we may not think of these as opponents but sometimes when we try to regulate them, when we try to position ourselves in a particular way and when we try to breathe in a particular way then we realize that there is opposition to doing these things from within us and we have to combat that opposition and combating that opposition requires the determination the will power which eventually leads to conquest, so in that sense it can be called a conquest jita swaso jita asana vairagya abhyasa yogena vairagya detachment abhyasa is regular practice of yoga abhyasa yogena dhriyamanam atandritah dhriyamanam dhriyamanam is to sustain, to maintain, to keep the mind steadily fixed, atandritah very carefully so here now the brahmana is describing the process of yoga and there in he states that there are various processes for controlling the mind and the purpose of yoga ultimately is to control the mind so here the processes that are listed or the activities that are enlisted in the service of the cause of controlling the mind are mentioned that the asana the swasa the vairagya, yoga all of them are meant to ultimately bring the mind under control so the soul is originally pure but to the extent the soul is influenced by the mind to that extent its original purity gets distorted and to that extent it acts in untrustworthy ways not just untrustworthy ways but in counterproductive ways its like if somebody has a say if a person is using GPS, global positioning system for travelling but somehow the GPS has gone off and the person does not have any experience of, does not have any traveller sense does not have any sense of directions does not have any sense of knowing the geography of the land so the person is relying exclusively on the GPS and the GPS goes off then whatever else then they are relying on that which is dysfunctional the person will actually end up misled so the GPS is not meant to be thrown away ultimately but GPS is meant to be utilised at that particular point when it is malfunctioning if it is used it will do a disservice rather than a service so therefore the person also needs to at that situation have another guide now the purpose of the guide is to show the right way to do what the GPS should have been doing normally now if you get an expert the expert will not only show the right as the right way but may also try to fix the GPS so like that then we practice various processes ultimately which involve our we can go to a guide and we can ask from the guide which direction should I go, what should I do now that is important that is essential but along with that we also have to check what it is that is important in life that how do we decide what is the basis for making our decisions that means we try to fix our value system just like the expert can fix the GPS similarly we go to the expert that means we study scripture, we go to the spiritual master and by that we fix our GPS that means we purify our mind so if we forget this purpose and do only the externals now that means to extend this example further if somebody is asked for directions where should I go that may be good in the short run but if it is a long journey and eventually one has to use the GPS then it is better to fix that, better to also spend time in fixing the GPS so like that when we are in this world we may get some guidance from our spiritual master from our spiritual guides but then we are most of our life on our own ekastu as the Bhagavatam states we have to make our journey alone and the spiritual master is not always with us but the mind is always with us so we have to spend a good amount of time fixing the mind and the various yoga various rituals of yoga or of purpose of renunciation or of breath control or whatever the purpose of all of them is to fix the mind fix, the word fix can mean two things fix is to focus on something and fix also means to mend, can you fix this computer that means it is not that you want to fix the computer on a wall or somewhere, fix the computer means it is not working properly so put it back in proper working order so what we need to do is we need to recognize this purpose now of course the travellers ultimate purpose is not just to have a functional GPS with the functional GPS the traveller can peacefully can smoothly read the destination so like that our ultimate goal is not to just control the mind because in sattva guna the mind is much more controlled than in rajoguna or tamoguna but our ultimate goal is not just to have a controlled mind our ultimate goal is to actually purify ourselves and by purifying ourselves to attain eternal life and love and loving relationship with Krishna so here if somebody just takes only a guidance and leaves at that takes only guidance once and leaves at that that will not solve a problem on a long term basis even if the guidance is coming from a spiritual master that’s why the spiritual master’s guidance is not so much about specific decisions as about generic values that frame on which our decision is based the spiritual master and the scripture they give us guidance about how we are meant to live our life about the values on which we should base our life and by learning these values we assimilate these values our GPS changes our mind changes to the extent the mind changes so when we say we have to control the mind that means we need to we need to change its values from tamoguna to rajoguna to sattva guna and eventually to sattva and to the extent that we are able to do this to that extent we will be successful in our both our material life and our spiritual life it doesn’t necessarily mean that we will become famous or wealthy it means that we will be able to do justice to our talents our abilities whatever Krishna has given us and our material life will be able to work in such a way that it contributes or at least it creates things at the material level peaceful so that we can focus on our spiritual life and the ultimate purpose of spiritual life is to move onwards towards Krishna and that purpose can be served to the extent we are able to fix our we are able to control our mind so this verse emphasizes the point that ekatra samyoja ekatra samyoja with whatever little mind control we have we start with it and then jita shvaso jita asana by regulating the breath regulating the asana proper asana and then with renunciation by the steady practice of yoga we bring the mind under greater focus we take our concentration to a deeper level dhriyamanam atanritah thank you