Should we hate the mind?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
legacy to it. So, the mind is not an enemy to be loathed, but a horse to be broken. The mind often troubles us during our normal course of life.
It suggests us to do things, or it discourages us from doing things which are good. It suggests us to do things which are either a wastage of time or which are harmful for us. And when we are repeatedly whistled by the mind, we become fed up with it, and we may start loathing it, hating it intensely, disliking it, and thinking, why do I have such a terrible mind? I want to get rid of the mind.
My mind is my worst enemy. I say, I always want to get rid of this mind. And the attitude of loathing the mind is scripturally unsustainable and it is practically unworkable.
Let’s look at these two reasons. Scripturally unsustainable. Now, we may, when we feel that the mind is our worst enemy, we may quote from scriptures, and so many people say that the mind is our enemy.
Yes, the scripture does say that the mind is our enemy, but that is not the only thing that scripture says. Scripture also says that many places the mind is our friend, or can be our friend. And many times in Maya, the scripture says this, in the same breath in which it says the mind can be our enemy.
For example, consider the Bhagavad Gita, 6.5. uddhare laatmanatmanam naatmanam avisatayet aatmai vahi aatmanobandhur aatmai varipuraatmanah uddhare laatmanatmanam Elevate yourself with the mind. aatmanatmanam naatmanam avisatayet Don’t degrade yourself with the mind. aatmai vahi aatmanobandhur The aatma, the mind is the friend of the soul.
aatmai varipuraatmanah The mind is the enemy of the soul also. So here, Krishna is definitely not depicting the mind as an enemy. Sometimes when we get in the mood of loathing the mind, we imagine the mind to be like a criminal who has been put on trial and has been convicted by scripture as our incorrigible enemy who deserves to be sentenced to eternal perdition.
But, scripture doesn’t do that. This verse states the binary potential of the mind. Its potential for hostility and for any ability.
It can be our friend and it can be our enemy also. Bandhu and Shatru, both. Ripul, Ripul and Shatru mean the same thing.
Ripul uses 6.5, Shatru uses 6.6. Now, beyond, if you see what is the call for action in this verse, that the mind can be our friend and mind can be our enemy, is the information given in the verse. That’s in C and D. The third and fourth lines of the verse. First and second line, A and D, what does it say? The call for action is, therefore, elevate yourself with the mind.
uddharetatmanatmanam naatmanam abhisandaye Don’t degrade yourself. So, the verse is placing the onus squarely on us, that knowing the binary nature of the mind, we need to handle it with care and become elevated and not become degraded by it. So, that’s why, when scripture talks about mind being both the friend and the enemy, we cannot say that the mind is our incorrigible enemy.
Our scriptural understanding is incomplete. And, from the practical point of view, treating the mind as an enemy to be loathed is practically unworkable. Why is that? Because the mind is vital for us, vital, indispensable for us to do any work.
We work with the mind and we work through the mind. The soul and the body are connected through the mind as the mediating link. The soul’s consciousness is rooted through the mind.
So, without the mind, the soul cannot do anything in this world. So, no matter how much we may loathe or hate the mind, we can’t get rid of it. And, because we eventually have to work with it, by hating it, we only waste our mental energy.
So, imagine there is a woodcutter who hates his axe for whatever reason. Maybe it is too blunt or too heavy or whatever. And, because of that hatred, he may do his hand wringing, he may do his fish shaking, he may do his foot stamping.
But, if he has no other axe, then after all this theatrics, he has to eventually pick up the axe and use it for cutting. So, his theatrics achieve nothing. Similarly, the mind is the indispensable tool for us to work in this world.
So, hating the mind does nothing except waste our time and our thought and fill us with negativity. So, that’s why we can’t, hating the mind is practically unworkable. Now, this analysis that hating the mind is not scripturally sound or practically sound, this is not meant to say that we just embrace the mind, we have a forget and forgive policy with the mind.
Oh mind, you are my friend. It is not that simple. If we just lower our guard against the mind and embrace the mind, the mind will stab us.
The mind will wreak havoc, mislead us and wreak havoc in our life. So, we certainly have to be on guard against the mind. But we have to be on guard without being in a mode of hatred.
This, we could call this mode as alertness without antipathy, without hatred. So, now, alertness without aversion. So, the example to understand this attitude of alertness without aversion is breaking a horse.
Now, breaking a horse refers to the process by which a new horse is trained so that it can be, it becomes rideable, so that it can be ridden. Now, when a horse is captured from the wild or a new horse is brought, the new horse is hardly ever ready to meekly submit to a person who wants to ride on top of it. The initial horse, the wild horse, if somebody tries to climb on it, it tries to push off that person.
Even after the person somehow manages to climb on it, the rider will try to throw off that person. Not only throw off the rider, but also trample on the person with his hooves. So, the wild horse, which is untrained, can be very dangerous.
And, at this stage, the horse needs to be broken. Broken doesn’t refer to physically breaking its bones, but it refers to emotionally breaking its obstinacy and making it submissive so that it will take, accept a rider and ride according to the command of the rider. So, similarly, we too need to break the mind.
Just as a person who needs to go from one place to another and needs a horse, will not get very far by hitting the horse, because afterwards he has to ride the horse. Similarly, we can’t get very far by hitting the mind. We have to work with it.
So, the mind doesn’t want to do our bidding, doesn’t want to obey us, just as the horse doesn’t want to carry its rider. And not only that, just as the horse rider might throw off the rider like that, the mind sometimes throws us into a tizzy by just confusing us by getting so many thoughts in so many different directions that we are not able to do anything. And worse still, since the horse may sometimes trample on the rider, similarly, the mind may fill us with such passions and impel us to such actions that they end up trampling on the values that we hold that are sacred for us.
So, in this way, the mind is definitely a danger, but it is a danger that is not to be hated, but it is a danger to be transformed. So, now, when a new horse is brought, it is usually taken to a horse trainer who breaks it. So, horse trainers use a regimen of reward and punishment to remove the horse’s behavior.
So, whenever the horse acts submissively, cooperatively, it is rewarded, it is given a pad, it is given some food, it is given some water and that way, and whenever it acts recalcitrantly, knowingly or knowingly you are trying to attack the rider, then it is punished. It is disciplined whatever way it is performed, stalled or whipped or whatever. And by this, slowly but surely, the horse becomes disciplined, it turns around and eventually it becomes a submissive carrier, submissive and non-submissive, but a competent carrier for the rider.
Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita also recommends that we need to train the mind. So, in 6.35, the Bhagavad Gita states that असम्चेन्महाभाहो मनोदुर्निग्रहं चलं अभ्यासे नतुकौंतेय वैराज्ये नचेग्रहियते It starts by saying that yes, the mind is very difficult to control, but then it says two verses, अभ्यासे नतुकौंतेय अभ्यास वैराज्ये नचेग्रहियते वैराज्ये नचेग्रहियते So, what do अभ्यास and वैराज्ये refer to? It is broadly similar to reward and punishment. Specifics, of course, vary because they are very different things, the horse and the mind.
So, in अभ्यास, we can have two things. One is repeatedly keeping the mind focused on the right thing, the positive, practical, purposeful thing that we want to do. And also, it means dragging the mind back again whenever it goes off.
And so the two are essentially the same thing and they are recommended by the Bhagavad Gita in 6.26 यतो इतो निष्चलति मनष्चन्चलमस्थिरम् तस्तोन्यम् यईत आत्मन्ये तस्तोन्यम् यईत आत्मन्ये Wherever and whenever the mind wanders, Krishna says, bring it back under the control of yourself. And then after that, it states further that actually the mind is one of our, so the mind is to be disciplined. अभ्यास like this.
And what is detachment? Detachment can also refer to two things. One is that when the mind gets excited, Oh, come on, eat this, come on, do this, come on, do that. We don’t get excited.
We stay dispassionate about the mind’s passions and evaluate them objectively. And detachment can also refer to not becoming too emotionally excited, expecting that we will be able, that the mind will become changed overnight. We will be staying patient and being willing to work with what the mind is ready to do.
The mind is capable of being ready. So, going back to the horse metaphor, it’s not that the horse trainer goes whichever direction the horse is going. It restrains, but at the same time, it’s not that the horse trainer is disappointed that the horse is not learning.
The horse trainer knows that training the horse takes time and is patient accordingly. So now, by this training of discipline and of disciplined positive practice and disciplined negative regulation, what will happen is the mind will get transformed. If we fix it on Krishna, then it will connect with the highest positive reality, that is, higher taste, which enables giving up, which makes giving up the lower things easier.
Now, even now, we can see the potential of the mind to be a friend. When we have certain multiple talents and we try to do something according to those talents, then while we are doing those activities, suddenly we get the ideas. The ideas come from the mind.
Do this, do that. These ideas often help us to improve our performance and to use our talents better. So, here the mind is acting as our friend.
Similarly, if there are certain activities which we like with the devotional service, so we want to do them more and more. And that’s why if our thoughts go towards Krishna through those activities much more easily than otherwise. And here also the mind takes our thoughts towards Krishna and that’s when the mind acts as our friend.
Now, this potential, we need to fan it. And if you fan it carefully by engaging determinately in the practice of bhakti yoga and by engaging by keeping determinately away from those things which take us away from Krishna, then by this abhyasa and vairagya, we will develop more and more attachment to the mind. And Bhagavad Gita states that in 6.47 and 7.01 that those who fix their mind on Krishna are the top most spirituals.
Krishna has fixed the mind on me and those who have fixed their mind on me, they are at a supreme situation in the spiritual path. That is mentioned in the previous verse 6.47. It states that among all the yogis, that yogi is the top most who fixes consciousness on Krishna entirely. Now, there is, sometimes when a person purchases a horse, that person may usually, usually that person hires a professional horse trainer and gives the task of breaking the horse to that person.
Now, we can’t, we don’t have that luxury. No one else can train the mind, our mind, except me. And of course, we do need a spiritual master and a spiritual master guidance is vital, indispensable for us to succeed in training the mind.
But even after we see the spiritual master’s guidance, it is our responsibility to train the mind. So, in that sense, the onus is squarely on us. But, we have one big advantage is that we have access to a power far greater than the power of the mind.
That is the power of God. So, when we engage in His devotional service, fix our mind on Him, render service to Him, chant His holy name, worship His beauty, study His scripture, and try to share His message to others, then by all these activities, we attract His grace. And His grace, like Him, is omnipotent.
And that enables us to conquer the lower tendencies in the mind. And thus, we move forward. So, that’s why the Bhagavad Gita repeatedly recommends that we fix our mind on Krishna.
Bhagavad Gita says that in 10.65, in its conclusion, fix your mind on Him. Fix your mind on Him. And like that, throughout the Gita, right from the beginning, it says, in 2.61, the Bhagavad Gita states clearly that we should fix the mind on Krishna.
He is the object of devotion, of unification, and ultimately, the object that will grant liberation. So now, once we fix the mind on Krishna, and the mind becomes attached to Krishna, then the mind will become transformed from an enemy into a friend. Horses that are close friends of their owners, when the owner comes in danger, the horses actually take the owner out of danger.
The same horse which was earlier a danger for the owner, now becomes the reliever of danger for that owner. So, during wars, when the riders become wounded, faithful horses have been known to flee from the area in order to save the horse, save the master, so the rider. Similarly, our mind can also become our friend and our saviour.
When we face temptations externally, the mind has become attached to Krishna, and the mind will say, don’t get involved in temptation, move towards Krishna. And the mind will push us to go towards Krishna, thus acting as our friend. And in that way, we will realize in the system that the mind can become a friend of the soul.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.