Gita 17.16 Austerity of mind transforms our inner disruptive enemy into a constructive friend

Transcript

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Thank you. Bhagavad Gita 17.16 manah prasada saumyato mauna mātava nigraha bhāvasam śuddhir te tattavo mānasam uchyate Krishna is talking here about austerity of the mind and he says manah prasada saumyato manah prasada means being satisfied with whatever one gets in life.
Satisfaction then of the mind. Saumyato, being gentle. Maunam, being grave, being silent.
Ātmavinigraha, self-control. Bhāvasam śuddhir te tattavo, purification of one’s existence. Tattavo mānasam uchyate, all these comprise austerity of the mind.
This is a very revealing and instructive list in terms of what all is the scope of the functioning of the mind. Manah prasada. We often think of satisfaction as an emotion that we feel.
I am dissatisfied. Satisfaction can also be a decision we make. We know that there are certain things, if we think of those, we will feel dissatisfied.
And in contrast, there are certain things, if we think about those, we will feel satisfied. So directing our thought energy in a way that is conducive to satisfaction, that is the austerity of the mind. So for example, if we have a particular phone and it is serving our purposes.
But if we start surfing all the advertisements about all the new kinds of phones which have come with all kinds of fancy features, most of which we will never use, but which simply add to the glamour of the new phone. And then we start craving for that new phone, which presently we can’t afford. Then thinking about that phone makes us dissatisfied.
So if we just decide that I will simply focus on how this phone is serving my purpose, the phone which I have, and how our life has a positive purpose which we are pursuing, then that will be more conducive for satisfaction. Ultimately, if we direct our thoughts towards Krishna, He is a supremely satisfying reality. When we focus on Him, then we will move forward much more positively and purposefully.
The mind is given to harshness. When we become angry with someone, we just explode at them. And even if culture or social pressure prevents us from mentally giving vent to whatever we feel, then internally we do give in to harsh emotions, slam someone, condemn that person.
And that way we create enormous amount of negative mental energy within us, which will eventually come out and hurt us, which will eventually make us feel weak. So that in moments of temptation or weakness in future, we will be overwhelmed by negativity. And we will utter things which we should not have uttered.
There are what are called as Freudian slips of tongue. A person speaks something accidentally, but what they speak accidentally actually reveals in a very significant way what they were thinking of, but what was concealed by them. So avoiding extremes, even at the level of the mind, is helpful both for our inner calm disposition and for our continued cultured behavior.
Maunam, silence. Normally we would consider silence to be austerity of the speech, because some people take a vow that for the next sometime I am not going to speak. It’s interesting that Krishna is talking about silence as austerity of speech, because the verbal speech that we do can often be distracting and damaging, but far more distracting and damaging is the mental speech that keeps going on.
Our mind is like a radio that keeps transmitting continuously. And the more we hear it, the more aggressively it broadcasts and the more aggressive ideas it broadcasts. So both the content and the style of the broadcast is shaped by our receptivity.
So for example, it may tell somebody who doesn’t drink, just take one drink, what’s the big deal, you just enjoy a little bit. But then if that person listens, then it won’t just be one drink. No, just go out and take 5, 10, 15 drinks, have the experience of your life.
Even if it means spending a significant amount of savings, which were meant to be used for something else. So mauna, the mind, we silence it by consistently refusing to listen to it. So the austerity at the level of the mind is that when the mind speaks nonsense, we consistently turn a deaf ear towards it.
Now, of course, we can’t just not listen to the mind. If a radio is going on in our house, then how can we possibly neglect it, especially if we don’t have the power to turn it off. What we could do is, we could become engaged in more purposeful activity and that purposeful activity will help us to put the radio broadcast in the background.
Similarly, if we have some responsible, serious activity that requires our attention, which we give our attention, then the mind’s broadcast will not find such receptivity within us and gradually that broadcast will decrease in both digressive and continuous delivery. So we need to be grave, recognizing that the mind is like a frivolous but forceful child and we need to ensure that we don’t get carried away by whatever stories the mind comes up with. Atma-mini-graha, self-control.
There is control at the level of the senses where at least we don’t physically indulge, but there is control even at the level of the mind where we don’t mentally indulge. Of course, if some thoughts have come in the mind, we can’t wish them away, but we don’t have to welcome them either. Sometimes some unwelcome guests come at our door, say a salesperson from whom we don’t want to purchase anything, comes at our door and starts knocking repeatedly.
Then we can very well just say no by not saying no at all, but by paying no attention at all. If we try to say no, then the salesperson is so persuasive, they will get us into a conversation and then they will sell us their product. But instead, if we just neglect them and continue our work, then we don’t unrealistically expect from ourselves that there will be no disruptive desires within us.
In fact, it is because of the presence of disruptive nigrahas that the specific enjoyment is nigraha, that we need to control. There is something which is going out of control and which is prompting us to go out of control. But by our purposeful engagement in constructive activities, we can avoid those disruptive thoughts.
And bhava samshuddhir tetat. Bhava samshuddhir means that we recognize that the existence can be purified primarily at the level of the mind by exposing the mind to pure stimuli. The more we expose our mind to pure stimuli connected with Krishna, the more our mind will move away from frivolity and sensuality and immorality and become situated in pure absorption in the all pure absolute.
So ultimately, austerity of the mind culminates in the Bhagavad Gita central instruction, man manabhava mad-bhakto. Fix your mind on me and offer your emotion to me in a mood of devotion. Thus, from being satisfied with our material situation, from not letting materially unfavorable situations create disruptions within us, by not entertaining the mind’s storytelling about how wonderful something would be if we get it or how dreadful something is because it has gone wrong, by not entertaining disruptive emotions even in their eyes and by consistently directing our mental energy towards Krishna, we all can perform austerity of the mind and thus convert our mind from being a disruptive enemy to a constructive friend who, instead of impeding our pursuit of our best interests, becomes an aid in that pursuit.