How can the mind be our friend?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So we said the mind can be our friend. How can it be our friend? In the mind, there are two kinds of impressions.
In English, we could call that impulses and instincts. Our impulses are something which are anti-intelligent. We see some food, I want to eat it more and more and more and more.
So that is an impulse which makes us act unintelligently. But we also have instincts. Instincts are like programmed intelligence.
Some people, they just eat some food and just by eating that food, they can tell you, you must have this item, this item, this item, this item. How do you know that? Some people just give them, they have a good language instinct. Just give them some passage, rewrite, use this word, use this sentence, do this, and the whole sentence sounds so much better.
Some people come into a room and even without consciously thinking, if you move this sofa here, you put this photo here, you change the color of this curtain, it will look much better. Just get it immediately. So, all of us have certain instincts in which we are good.
In this case, the mind tells us a story. The mind I am using broadly is the subtle body, which is there between us and the physical body. From there, sometimes ideas come which are good.
We do this, do this, do this, everything is good. So, in some ways, we also have some good impressions. Say, if we have been brought up in a devotee family, when we come in front of the temple, come in front of the deities, immediately bored up.
We do not always consciously think, oh, this is a lot I have to bore up. That is just a habit which has been cultivated. So, like that, the mind, based on the good impressions that have been cultivated, or the instincts that we have been blessed with, the mind sometimes tells us the right things also.
So, people who are good at observing and learning, one thing has happened and this is possible. Therefore, take care of this. So, some people just hear a little sound in a car, you know your car’s carburetor is bad, you have to replace it.
How do they know? I also hear the same sound, I do not get it. So, now, they are not just imagining it. They have trained their ears in such a way.
Or they have got that map, they can make it out. So, when the mind prompts us, or mind tells us something, which is actually right, or which is in harmony with what is likely to happen, then that is our instinct. And instinct is like a program in them.
So, in some cases, our mind gets things right also. So, in those cases, what the mind says is for our benefit. And especially when we start practicing bhakti, as we keep practicing bhakti more and more, the mind will become our friend.
And even if the world proposes, come on, eat this, watch this, enjoy this, why not? No. Like say, some of us might have been eating meat before. And then after we become devotees, we understand, why should I injure animals just for my karma.
So, then we start taking prasadam, and then if you are going on a train or a plane, and somebody else next to us is eating meat. We may not even feel like eating. If somebody, wouldn’t you like to share? No.
So, our mind, even if somebody is eating, we don’t look at it. The mind has lost that desire. So, what has happened? The mind itself has become transformed.
The mind which was craving earlier for that food, is no longer craving. In fact, it is not good, no need to eat. So, that’s how the mind can also be our friend.