What does the Gita’s call to control the mind by practice and renunciation mean practically?
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so for controlling the mind the Gita recommends practice and renunciation so what does this mean in practical terms we can compare the mind to a horse now if somebody is living in a traditional farm they have a big farm they need a horse it’s so big and suppose they don’t have any vehicles it’s a traditional farm then they need the horse without that they will not be able to move around but suppose that horse is unruly then there is a there is when a new horse is brought to make the horse rideable the process is called breaking the horse breaking doesn’t mean physically breaking its bones but just means breaking its obstinacy breaking its reluctance to be ridden and while doing that there are specialized trainers who do that break the horse it’s not that a new owner of a horse can just break the horse themselves there are trainers who break the horse and then they hand it over to the owner so like that the mind is essential for us see the soul is spiritual the world around us is material and the mind is the essential interface between the soul and the body and the world between spirit and gross matter the mind is the essential interface so we can’t just reject the mind we need the mind but just as the horse can be dangerous if it is not broken if it is not trained similarly the mind can be dangerous so when I have to train the horse when I have to say break the horse make it rideable so there is abhyasa and vairagya we can understand from that perspective one is that ok the horse may be unruly sometimes the rider climbs on it and the horse just rears off and becomes very violent the trainer may fall off again they get up again they get up and again they do it this has to be done again and again that is only when the person becomes trained the horse becomes trained so that is abhyasa the mind goes off bring it back again the mind throws it off I was doing the same how did I end up over here sometimes we are reading one article we go and read one article oh you know India Pakistan may fight a war let me read the news so I start reading the news this also looks interesting this also looks interesting and then you wanted to read five minutes and two hours ago how did I get up over here as soon as you become aware come back so like that the mind may throw us off but we bring it back so then that is abhyasa now what is vairagya vairagya has two aspects to it in this context of the horse first is that the horse rider the horse trainer cannot be attached to the idea that in one training I’ll make the horse my master I’ll become the master of the horse the horse will be unruly and the owner needs to be detached it didn’t work out I’ll try again it didn’t work out I’ll try again so a detachment means a detachment from the idea of instant success so we need to be we cannot be perfectionists when we are dealing with the mind the mind will go off it’ll go off it’ll bring it back so detachment means at one level detachment from the expectation of immediate success say when we start when life starts we have too many problems we tend to get depressed the solution to depression is that we don’t depress ourselves we depress our expectations of ourselves often our depression comes and we have too big expectations and they don’t work out but if you depress our expectations you’ll not feel so bad so there’s a detachment from our own expectation of immediate success that is also required when we deal with the mind it’ll take time for it to come but another more another sense in the word detachment means also that we don’t identify with the mind I say come on watch that no it’s not so important I’ll not watch it so when the horse starts going off in another direction the rider needs to be detached from identifying with the horse so identify the mind so don’t identify with the mind is detachment so we are detached from the mind’s ideas of what is important or what is enjoyable or what needs to be thought about we detach no you think the mind thinks like that but I don’t think it’s very important I’ll not put my attention so detachment can apply both ways so not being attached to our own idea of expectation of major success and not being attached to whatever the mind thinks of as important and with both of these centered in repeatedly bringing the mind back on whatever is important for us by that we will be able to become constructively