Gita 06.06 – Train the mind as a horse is trained

Bhagavad gita 6.6 bhandur aatmaat manastasya yenaatmaivaatmanajitaha anaatmanastu shatrutve varteet aatmaiva shatruvaat so bhandur aatmaat manastasya bhandur bhandur is the friend aatmaat manastasya for the aatma the mana is the friend bhandur aatmaat manastasya yenaatmaivaatmanajitaha yena for the aatma for that person aatmaiva yenaatmaivaatmanajitaha by whom the mind is conquered anaatmanastu shatrutve anaatmanastu here one is not able to control bring it under control shatrutve then enmity the mind will stay situated with enmity varteet aatmaiva shatruvaat anaatmanastu means not in the control of oneself to shatrutve then in the position of enmity varteet it will stay aatmashatruvaat aatmaiva shatruvaat the enemy of the soul so in this verse Krishna differentiates clearly between the aatma and the mana so in the previous verse Krishna has used the word aatma to refer to both the aatma and the mana and sometimes some commentators translate that verse as elevate the self with the self and don't degrade the self with the self for the self is the friend of the self and the self is also the enemy of the self so this particular translation although it has been done by some acharyas also but it is very ambiguous and interpreting the one aatma as the mind not only helps us to more easily make sense of that verse but it is also consistent with the overall theme of this section because the theme of the mind is mentioned clearly in this verse and these two have a clear continuity of thought so from that we can easily understand that the mind is what is being referred to in the previous verse also in 6.5 and further the theme of the mind is continued in the next verse also there we will discuss that verse when we come to it the idea of conquering the soul doesn't make any sense the soul doesn't conquer the soul so there aatmana has jit aatmana it has to clearly refer to the mind itself the point is that without going into semantics too much that this verse unambiguously uses the word manha and it uses it so that the overall theme of the section becomes clear and whatever ambiguity might be caused because of the use of the word aatma for both mind and soul is resolved in this verse now let's look at what this verse says so so that person for that person the mind is the friend by whom the mind is conquered or what is controlled at the very least so here Krishna is stating that one who controls the mind for him the mind becomes the friend now what does it mean literally normally we don't talk about something like controlling a friend isn't it we cooperate with a friend we assist a friend essentially we have a cooperative relationship with a friend if somebody says that oh I control my friend then we may wonder what kind of friendship is that yes there is control when there is love also but then that is not exactly we don't really call it control at least not in a friendly relationship parents may say I have control over my child if I tell him to do this he will do it but generally we don't talk about control when we talk about friends and interestingly Krishna is not talking about controlling a friend Krishna is talking about controlling to make it a friend which is even more intriguing because normally after we control someone does that person become a friend somebody's enemy if you are saying that the person is becoming a friend that means normally the person was not earlier a friend and we look at the second part of the verse where it talks about enemy it will stay as enemy that means that the mind is an enemy normally after controlling something does it become a friend for example if say there is a if India has Pakistan as an enemy so after India controls Pakistan will Pakistan become a friend normally if a foe is controlled that foe resents the control and always tries to get back at the controller and thereby thereby wreak havoc cause misery to the controller how dare you try to control me but here Krishna is saying after you control the person will become a friend so now the example for this rather than looking at literally at two enemies we can look at the example of say how a man breaks and trains a horse initially when a horse is new say new because it's young and has not yet been trained to be ridden or it is new because it has just been captured from the forest the horse doesn't want to submit to somebody riding on its back and because of that the horse moves and tries to use its hooves to attack and especially tries to throw off the rider so at that time the trainer now if the person who is ultimately going to use the horse that person is not very expert then that person sometimes takes a trainer they are often called colliers who are expert at handling horses and they are called to, the technical word is used to break the horse break the horse doesn't mean literally break its bones and then it will become useless for riding but break the horse means break its obstinacy, break its stubbornness so there is quite a systematic process and there is a combination of love and discipline by which the horse is broken some trainers who really love horses they may not even use the word breaking horses but essentially the horse stubbornness and reluctance or recalcitrance more precisely reluctance is just unwillingness recalcitrance is stubborn opposition so the horses recalcitrance is slowly steadily determinately decreased by the trained by the horse trainer and slowly surely as the horse gets more and more connected with the trainer then the same horse which would have earlier violently mauled or thrown off any person who approached it that horse then just gently neighs and welcomes whoever wants to come and sit on it so this transformation happens because their horse has been controlled as itself its horse has been broken so like that we shouldn't see the relationship between us and the mind as as inherently or incorrigibly adversarial inherently means that that is intrinsic feature of nature itself and incorrigibly means that feature cannot be changed at all no we have to have yes there is a adversarial mode that is there but that has to be that has to be overcome and the way to overcome is not just by brute force if a horse or trainer just uses brute force and starts beating the horse every time sometimes that sort of beating is required but beating is not the main thing the main thing is reorienting the horse so similarly we need to reorient the mind by training it and this training centers on making the mind do what we wanted to do that is matter from the spiritual perspective from the scriptural perspective and not letting the mind do what it wants to do so the horse just wants to go here and there but the horse trainer says go here so like that we force the horse of the mind to go in a particular direction where we want it to go and we don't let it go in other directions so the best direction in which we can let the mind go is Krishna because Krishna is all attractive and Krishna is omnipotent and contact with Krishna helps us bring the mind in control much faster than would be the case if we try to control the mind by any other means so by thus striving to keep the mind to not let the mind go in undesirable directions so in this way we control the mind and just as the horse eventually may become such a good friend of its master that if in a war field master falls in master gets wounded and in danger then the horse there have been many times faithful horses have been known to just run rapidly while the master holds on to its back and the horse takes the master clear of the danger so earlier the same horse which would have caused the danger to the master by knocking down the master and may be by trampling by mauling it with its hard hooves that same horse saves the master so like that the mind which gives us so much trouble but if we expose it to Krishna repeatedly and by exposing it to Krishna we purify it so that it becomes attracted to Krishna then that mind becomes our well-wisher and then when we are in danger so rather than the mind rather than we being in a presently how it happens is we are in a safe devotional situation suddenly the mind reminds us of sensual temptations and we go into temptations and we fall down thus we go into danger zone from where we are in a safe zone that is what the impure mind does but when the mind has become purified then even when we are in temptation zone the mind reminds us this is not what your life is meant for you have enjoyed these pleasures so many times there is no real pleasure in this just go and take shelter of Krishna and then in this way the mind takes us out of danger zone into a safe zone and thus the mind delivers us so Krishna is saying that we strive to control the mind and by striving to control the mind we can make it our friend and thus the mind can assist us that means we can use the mind to think of Krishna and by thinking about Krishna by thinking about how best to serve Krishna we can move onwards in our spiritual journey to him and to attain everlasting happiness thereby when we attain him.