Category Archives: manah

Bhagavad Gita Verse 25, Chapter 6

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in aatmasamstham, api, budhhyaa, chantayet, chapter 6 verse 25, dhritigrheetayaa, kinchit, kritvaa, manah, na, shanaih, uparamet

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shanaihi shanairooparamedbuddhyaa dhritigrheetayaa |
aatmasamstham manah kritvaa na kinchidapi chintayet || 25 ||
 
With firm resolve and regularity, slowly but surely, withdraw (the mind) through the intellect. Having established the mind in the self, do not think even a little bit about anything else.
 
shanaih : slowly
shanaih : slowly
uparamet : withdraw
buddhyaa : through the intellect
dhritigrheetayaa : with firm resolve and regularity
aatmasamstham : established in the self
manah : mind
kritvaa : do
na : not
kinchit : even a little bit about
api : anything else
chintayet : think
 
In the prior shloka, Shri Krishna advised the meditator to detach the mind from sense objects, and to control desires by checking unwanted thoughts. In this shloka, Shri Krishna goes deeper into the topic of focusing attention on one thought. He says that the meditator should use his intellect to withdraw the mind from all material thoughts in order to focus the mind on the one thought : “I am the self”.
 
In the third chapter, we had encountered the hierarchy of our personality where we saw that the mind is higher than the senses, and the intellect is higher than the mind. What does it mean for the meditator? It means that even though the mind is hard to control, our intellect has the power to rein it in. In other words, the meditator should use the intellect to control the mind.
 
The mind likes to be busy. It hops from one thought to another at lightning fast speeds. Once we withdraw the mind from the senses, the mind gets restless because it cannot run after sense objects. In order to keep busy, it starts thinking about the past and the future. So therefore, Shri Krishna asks us to use our intellect to rein in the mind. This withdrawal is called “buddhi uparamet” in the shloka.
 
How does one do that? Let’s take dieting as an example. Imagine that our doctor has asked us to go on strict diet for 2 weeks. Our first step is to control the senses by not keeping any undesirable food in the house. When this happens, the mind will continuously think about food, and tempt the body to do undesirable things, e.g. go out of the house to get fatty food and so on. The mind becomes agitated and restless, which is a recipe for disaster.
 
At this point, we use our intellect that has received the doctor’s instructions to check the mind. We think : “I respect the doctor. Therefore, mind, stop contemplating undesirable food since it will have negative consequences for me”. When we think this thought, we can control the mind’s rush into food-related thoughts.
 
Similarly during meditation, we can withdraw the mind using the intellect. We need to have an intellect that has read and heard about the eternal essence. It understands that any thought other than “I am the self” does not have a place in meditation. Each time an unwanted thought comes, we should use the intellect to gently but firmly shift focus from that thought and put the mind back into the main thought of “I am the self”.
 
Shri Krishna says that this method could take weeks, months or years. Therefore, he asks us to do it “shanaih shanaih” or slowly slowly, with great fortitude and patience. We should constantly meditate over the thought : “ I am the self”. Other than this thought, there should be no other thought. Each time the mind strays, we should not think that we have failed and get dejected. We should again bring the mind back slowly to the one main thought.
 
When done correctly, we generate a lot of energy will radiate from our personality. This “tapas” or energy was always within us, but used to leak out through our mind and sense organs.
 
Now, the mind has another issue. It moves from thought to thought with great speed. This is taken up in the next shloka.
 
Footnotes
1. Meditation on the thought that “I am the self” is called “sajaatiya vritti”
2. Any thought other than “I am the self” is called “vijaatiya vritti” or thought about an object 3. These undesirable thoughts create the notion that “I am not the self, I am the experiencer”
4. We have to negate these undesirable thoughts during meditation

Bhagavad Gita Verse 40, Chapter 3

17 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in 3.40, aavritya, adhisthaanam, asya, buddih, chapter 3 verse 40, dehinam, eshah, etaih, indriyaani, jnyaanam, manah, uchayte, vimohayati

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indriyaani mano buddhirasyaadhishthaanamuchyate |
etairvimohayatyesha jnyaanamaavritya dehinam || 40 ||

The senses, mind and intellect are said to be its residence. Through them, this (desire) covers the body-dweller’s wisdom.

indriyaani : senses
manah : mind
buddhih : intellect
asya : this
adhishthaanam : residence
uchyate: it is said
etaih : these
vimohayati : delude
eshah : this (desire)
jnyaanam : wisdom
aavritya : cover
dehinam : body-dweller

Like a military strategist reveals the location of the enemy to the warrior, Shri Krishna in this shloka reveals the location of the karmayogi’s enemy. The enemy in the form of desire has three residences. The first residence is the senses, the second is the mind, and the third is the intellect. Note that he uses the term “body-dweller” to remind us that the body, mind and intellect are separate than the eternal essence.

In the senses, desire and anger manifest as likes and dislikes, as we have seen before. Now, each sense organ has its own likes and dislikes. For example, the ear may find some sounds pleasing and others harsh. These likes and dislikes come from our natural tendencies or prakriti. You can see likes and dislikes in animals as well. Your pet dog may prefer one kind of food over another.

There is not much that we can do about our natural tendencies. We just need to ensure that they do not obstruct us from our goals. But when we feed them by giving them time and attention, they get charged by our emotions and take residence in our mind. Our mind is the faculty that gathers data from the senses and creates a coherent picture of what is being senses. It also generates thoughts based on current and past impressions.

Our language will give us an indication of whether a like is residing in our senses or in our mind. If we say, “I like to eat fries” or “I prefer fries”, it is still at the level of senses. But if we say, “I absolutely love fries, I cannot do without them”, it means that the like has now gone into the mind.

There is another indication that a desire has penetrated into the mind. A desire can be active even if the object of the desire is not perceived by the senses. If we dislike a person only when we meet him, then that dislike is at the level of the senses. But if we keep thinking “I hate that person” even when he is not in front of us, then that dislike has become hatred and has penetrated our mind.

The last and most dangerous place for a desire to reside is in our intellect, which is the faculty that takes decisions based on analysis and rationality. If we begin to justify and rationalize our loves and hates, it means that the desire has penetrated into our intellect. It is extremely difficult to tackle such desires, because they have completely taken hold of us: our senses, our mind and our intellect. Someone who resorts to violence and is utterly convinced of his position will even quote from scriptures to justify his actions, for instance.

So therefore, Shri Krishna provided Arjuna with the location and nature of the enemy that he needed to tackle. He explains the technique of tacking the enemy in the next shloka.

Bhagavad Gita Verse 67, Chapter 2

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in 2.67, anuvidheeyate, asya, charataam, harati, hi, indriyaanaam, ivam ambhasi, manah, naavam, prajnyaaam, tat, vaayuh, verse 2 chapter 67, yat

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indriyaanaam hi charataam yanmanuvidheeyate |
tadasya harati prajnyaam vaayurnaavamivaambhasi || 67 ||

For, even one of the wandering senses overpowers the mind and steals away wisdom, like wind affects a ship in water.

indriyaanaam : among the senses
hi : for
charataam : wandering
yat : the one that
manah : mind
anuvidheeyate : submitted
tat : that
asya : this
harati : steals
prajnyaam : wisdom
vaayuh : wind
naavam : ship
iva : like
ambhasi : water

A picture is worth a thousand words. So here, just like Shri Krishna painted a picture of the tortoise earlier, he uses another picture to portay an important point – that just one sense organ has the ability to destroy us. He gives us the example of a rudderless ship at sea. It will go wherever the wind takes it, and in time, eventually be destroyed.

In the same way, just one sense organ – the eye seeing something tempting, the ear hearing some gossip, the tongue tasting alcohol –  one sense organ can bring the mind under submission. In doing so, it can take away the intellect’s capacity to function. And worse still, this whole chain of events can happen in a fraction of a second, and we won’t even know it has happened unless we are eternally aware and alert.

We are nearing the end of the section on the signs of the individual of steady wisdom, and are a few shlokas away from concluding the second chapter.