It is the Mind that Wins or Loses

A mong all the creatures of the world, man is considered to be of the highest form, and among all the endowments with which nature has blessed him, the human mind is undisputedly the most valuable and the best. In a general sense, ‘mind’ means the faculty or capability of animals through which different emotions and feelings, pleasures and pains, etc., are experienced and friend and foe recognized. Scholars have analyzed the term mind in various ways. For example, playfulness and spontaneity are the natural attributes of the mind. The philosophers, therefore, believe that the human mind is like a pond whose placid water immediately turns into moving waves under the impact of blowing air.

According to psychologists, the first thing which comes to the human mind is thought, then it starts deliberation and contemplation, and in the end, starts the implementation process. The thoughts form the foundation of a person’s progress or decline. The mind gets influenced by the circumstances and establishes its control over the five sense organs and the five organs of action. That is why wise saints consider the mind as the eleventh organ.

Mind is the power through which a human being can uplift himself to the level of a Supreme being. In other words, if the thoughts arising in the mind are noble, man can reach the pinnacle of progress, but ignoble thoughts can also take him to the abyss of depravity. This is because the mind’s natural tendency is to influence and stimulate the concerned organ toward the desired objective. Control over the mind establishes control over all other organs. Param Pujya Gurudev has rightly said in this regard – it is the mind that wins or loses.

The Vedic seers and lawmakers have prescribed many methods for controlling and refining the mind. It has been said in the Yajurveda – “Let my mind be devoted to Lord Shiva and be the holder of noble thoughts.” If we have to achieve big successes through the power of the mind, we must bear lofty and noble thoughts and firm resolve in our inner being. Wise saints consider it essential to protect these attributes from the five vices of the body, viz. lust, anger, arrogance, greed, and attachment and then imbibe the former permanently. For refinement of the mind, control over the organs, company of saints and pious souls, and prudence are necessary, but all this is not possible without the grace of God.

The mind is a formless dimension of the body that is always agile and in motion. With the power of imagination, the mind is beyond all bodily limitations and other boundaries and can transcend time and space. It can access the king and the pauper and the high and the low effortlessly; it can fleet across thousands of years in the past and the future in the blinking of an eye.

The human mind has two aspects — the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is dependent on intellectual progress. Whatever work we do after careful deliberation is done in our waking state. These are done by our consciousness force, controlled and guided by the conscious mind. But the unconscious mind is not subject to consciousness force; it is always free.

According to psychologists, the unconscious mind is so potent that it keeps on doing its work even without any signal from the conscious mind. It is, in a way, so much beyond the range of human control that sometimes its work goes even against our wishes. The conscious mind is always active whether we are sleeping or waking. In fact, it is the bearer and conductor of our innate attributes and tendencies. It never tires; it never stops. It is the conscious mind that is the storehouse of a person’s energy and abilities.

The noble tendencies and sanskaras (subtle impressions) in the unconscious mind make permanent niches there. They become habituated to doing good with enthusiasm routinely. On the contrary, if ignoble and negative tendencies have established themselves in the unconscious mind, the latter would keep doing undesirable work without further direction or prompting.

The thoughts of the person form the basic contour of the unconscious mind. Emotions, imaginations, and resolves that a person keeps bearing and contemplating for a long time get embedded in his unconscious mind and become permanent.

At the prompting of the soul, we should discard the fake and ignoble thoughts from our minds and establish there what is true and righteous. Shraddha (deep faith) is the only fundamental element that can make firm the virtuous emotions in the unconscious mind. Shraddha is the reservoir of our energy. In the absence of shraddha, knowledge becomes futile, the action becomes powerless, and man’s life is reduced to a mere biological existence of a lowly creature.

People do prayer and bhajan (devotional singing), but many do it only superficially; beneath the surface, they remain more interested in material gratification. Indeed, the need is to search out these hidden lusts. As long as these desires and longings remain hidden, no progress towards spiritual upliftment can be hoped for. So observing and examining the mind and its tendencies daily is a necessary and fruitful method.

It is the inner being that takes the form of lust, anger, and greed and overwhelms the knowledge. The realization – “I am the soul” is needed to keep the mind under control. With the flame of this realization, we can burn the hidden desires in our minds to ashes. If the mind is not brought under control, even the holy trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh cannot be of much benefit.

Only when a mind yearning for sensory pleasures develops a deep love for God does the good of the living being occur. The only way to awaken this love is to place such irrefutable courses and strategies before the mind to make it disinterested in pleasures and attracted to God.

Let us think for a moment about what cures a patient – medicine or diagnosis? Indeed, both are important. But medicine works only when the diagnosis is correct. If the diagnosis is wrong, medicine remains ineffective, or it may even harm. It is the diagnosis that takes time, not the administration of the drug. Medicine is already existing — prepared and ready. Only its prescription is required.

In the same way, when the ills of the mind are diagnosed correctly, the cure will not take much time. In the company of saints and virtuous surroundings, the mind’s weaknesses become noticeable. Hence one should sit in such an atmosphere and calmly introspect. One should ask oneself – “Countless rosary beads have worn out in the past years; still, so many ills and demerits remain hidden inside me. Why is it so? The effect of bhajans should have destroyed them by now, but they are still lurking beneath, ready to strike!”

Make a firm resolve that you have to ferret out these hidden enemies. The firmness of determination facilitates the path to the goal. But such noble resolutions are only possible in the right environment. A person spends money like water to cure himself of bodily diseases and even takes huge loans or sells the property. But he hardly pays any attention to ridding himself of mental ailments. He does not realize that when the end of this body comes near, no relatives or dear ones will be of any help.

The problem is that even the introspection of the mind cannot be done by a person with normal attachment to the myriad charms of the world. This examination is possible only with a pure mind. There are millions of microorganisms in one drop of blood, but we cannot see them with naked eyes. The seed of a banyan tree is of the size of a minuscule mustard grain, but it hides within itself a huge tree. Similarly, polluted sanskaras dwell in the mind unnoticed. It is, therefore, essential that we develop such probing and observant eyes that we keep refining ourselves all the time.

Akhand Jyoti Magazine 2022 May-June