SB 11.23.46 – With mind control everything else is unnecessary; without mind control everything else is useless

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
11 23 46 samahitam may be so that person for whom mind is fixed and pacified samahitam is fixed prashantam is peaceful what is the need for such a person to do activities like dana dana what is the need for that person on the other hand the mind is uncontrolled and is lost completely almost like destroyed lost in ignorance and what is the use of activities like dana so here davanti brahmana is explaining how the control of the mind is the central purpose of everything in life including all religious activities when mind control is achieved then all other religious activities are unnecessary but when mind control is not achieved all these activities are useless that means that whenever we perform various activities in our spiritual life we have to keep the purpose in mind and remember that these are not just rituals that we have to get done they are transformational actions and they are meant to bring about a transformation and we try to do them with that intention otherwise they are not much productive so he’s taking a relatively noble activity dana debase dana’s charity is considered quite a noble activity virtuous activity one which will one which from the material point of view also does good to others and from the material religious point of view it involves getting punya so it is a noble activity but even noble activities like that are not of much use if they do not lead to the if they do not lead to mind control or if the doer is not controlled in the mind so because the mind is our enemy and if we are not getting control of the mind no matter how good activities we do the mind can any any our women make us do activities which can destroy ourselves and as long as the mind is not controlled we stay on in material existence in fact we may go into deeper and darker material existence so therefore so therefore the central purpose of everything that we do is to control the mind and when we recognize this purpose then we also recognize the vital importance of chanting then many of our the activities that we do even in our religious life we don’t have to battle the mind as much as we have to battle it during chanting because say when we are hearing class if we like philosophy our mind easily gets absorbed if we don’t like philosophy so much it’s not that after every class there is going to be an exam going to assess how attentively we have heard the mind may wander here and there and it at least externally it doesn’t make much difference how much we have been attentive when we are doing other services we have to have some basic level of attention so that we do the service well but it does not really require us to do battle with the mind in a concentrated way because often most services involve some physical aspect also and the physical engagement keeps us engaged without necessarily have to be having to be fully engaged mentally but when it comes to chanting what essentially happens is that we lose our all material or physical distractions because there is nothing else that we can do during the time of chanting and we have to come face to face in conversation or confrontation with the mind it’s not that we have to talk with the mind but we just come face to face with the mind and we are in conversation with the mind generally speaking it is the mind which is let’s dream about that let’s worry about that let’s figure that out and if we listen to the mind often it becomes a monologue in which we wander wherever the mind is wandering and if that is the way our chanting goes then we don’t hear the holy name much and then just as here it is said can also be simply said of course because we are chanting the holy names and the holy names have potency to purify so even in attentive chanting will give us some benefit but certainly nowhere nowhere near as much benefit as we would have got if we were chanting attentively so therefore if we are just in a conversation with the mind we lose much of the opportunity for spiritual advancement and the mind stays it keeps diagnosed towards destruction but on the other hand if we get into a confrontation with the mind that means the mind says come on think of that no nothing will concentrate on the holy name that leads to a battle and it is through this battle alone that gradually the mind comes under control it’s not necessary that the mind has to always do battle because sometimes if the mind is in goodness mind goes through different modes sometimes when the mind is in one of the higher modes at that time the mind may cooperate also and concentrate in the holy name but quite often we will have to go through the confrontation and at that time we can just be lazy and lackadaisical and choose the easy way out that means we just go along and do whatever the mind says think about whatever the mind says and just chant mechanically perfunctorily ritualistically without concentrating the mind and such chanting leads neither to pacification nor purification we just feel that when will this getting get over so that i can do something else so by such chanting we are just cheating ourselves and if you remember that what is the use of everything else without chanting without being able to control the mind if we meditate on this then we will be able to get the intellectual conviction that that mind control which is the most important the central purpose and the most important aspect of all these activities that i have the full and excellent opportunity to achieve through chanting therefore let me put my let me do battle let me not be lazy let me intelligently attentively indeterminately confront the mind and thereby take myself forward