What is stillness of mind?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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So, what does stillness of the mind refer to? prashantamanasam dhenam yoginamsukham uttama upaiti shantatrajasam brahma bhavta karmasam 6.27, Krishna talks about prashantamanasam, the mind becomes totally peaceful. But then he is saying, how does it happen? upaiti shantatrajasam, rajas is the mode of passion.
So, when the mode of passion becomes pacified, then the mind becomes truly peaceful. So, within us, the desires are raging. I want this, I want that, I want this to work out.
So, when all these desires are raging, at that time, the mind also stays restless. So, desire is what powers the mind. Now, to the extent the desires go down, to the extent the desire, the mind becomes calm.
Now, our purpose is not to become desireless. Because we cannot live without desires. Our purpose is to have pure desires.
So, on the impersonal path, people think that the perfection is to just give up desires. You just still the mind, yogas chitta bhakti lodh. Just stop all the activities of the mind that is considered to be the perfection of yoga.
The bhakti says, yes, how it is, that the soul is here, the mind is here. So, to give the example of the software, the software is giving its auto suggestion, go here, look at this site, look at this link, look at this picture, watch this movie. I do not want this, just stop it.
Sometimes you may have a filtered software which has nothing else found. So, for us, we want the mind to be still, so that the natural desires and soul is relaxed. So, it is not that I want to give up the computer.
I want to use the computer, but I do not want all this nonsense. So, for us, the perfection is not desirelessness. We want not just the still mind, we want the pure mind.
We want the focused mind. The Bhagavad Gita does not talk just about calming the mind. Yes, this is 6.27, Krishna says, But then, just three verses later, he talks about, One who sees me everywhere and sees everything, that person is never lost.
So, we want that the mind stop distracting us and the calm mind will focus where we want to focus. So, for us, we are interested not so much in the stillness of the mind as a perfection. The stillness of the mind is meant so that the mind can help us focus on Krishna and become absorbed in Krishna.
The Gopis are at that level where even they do not want to think about Krishna. One time, Krishna hugged the Gopis. The Gopis said, Krishna, if he can live without us, we will also live without him.
So, our mind just goes to Krishna. So, what to do? We have heard that by the process of yoga, we can control the mind. So, the Gopis said, we will do yoga to forget Krishna.
So, we do yoga to remember Krishna. And then, one of the Gopis would speak something about Krishna. And then, the Gopis are thinking about Krishna.
And a lot of time, they would speak, and then we would remember, Oh, we are supposed to forget Krishna. So, for them, actually, their mind was perfected because they are already attracted to Krishna. So, currently, our mind is attracted to other things, but we want to be attracted to Krishna.
So, we want to calm the mind. So, there are three stages. First, the mind is a distractor.
Then, the mind is silent. And then, the mind becomes a co-operator. So, in our case, we do not go to the detour of trying to silence the mind.
We are just trying to shift the mind from a distractor to a co-operator. We have a practice of bhakti. We engage the mind in the practice of bhakti.
And gradually, the mind which is a distractor will become a co-operator. Does that answer your question? Very good.