The Monkey Mind: How to Master It | Essence of the Geeta | Episode 88

You are listening to the essence of the Gita. In this episode, Swamiji explains why single-pointedness and perseverance are essential to mastering the mind through meditation. Here, we explore how to recognize distractions, bring the mind back and keep practicing without despair. Even for worldly success, even to attain any material success or progress, few things are essential. Until and unless we have a constant, continuous, focused application towards our goal, we cannot attain that goal. Without single-pointedness, dedication, conviction and in spite of any difficulties or challenges, in spite of any obstacles, in spite of any difficulties to pursue, to persevere till we reach our goal. No success is possible. Same way also, this meditation is not to be pursued haphazardly and the infinite is not just discovered casually. How much more single-pointedness, perseverance and dedication do we require? Yet the journey itself is so beautiful that after we have taken the first few steps, it just goes on becoming easier and easier and easier because every step is so enjoyable, so beautiful. But when it is done with right knowledge, it is not difficult. When we haphazardly do it, then it is difficult. If you are not consistent in our application, then it is difficult. If Gita was talking about some material gain, how to make money, even though all these same principles apply, then it would be a book only meant for those people who want to make money. It would be meant for those people and it would be a book on wealth management. Krishna is talking about life management and the gain that he is talking about is not some finite gain. Arjuna was Dhananjaya. He had won a lot of wealth. Arjuna was Parantapa. He has conquered many foes. Arjuna was successful. He has won many battles. What Krishna is not giving to Arjuna, what he already knows, or even what he thinks he wants to know. But Krishna is teaching him what he needs to know. Therefore, Arjuna said, I don't know even what I want. So now you tell me. Very often even people pursue this knowledge for a certain reason, for something, for a certain reason it is required. Then there are certain things we like or we don't like. That's why even to gain this knowledge, we have to be free of likes and dislikes. And how much more is needed in the seat of meditation, where the truth is not according to what you like to see, where it is what it is. Therefore, Bhagawan has now pointed out in great details. Whatever is your natural Swabhava, whatever is your need, your destiny, nature, or God will provide for it. Your natural desire or vasanas or purpose for which you were born in this life will fulfill itself naturally. What disturbs us, what distracts us, what causes agitations in our mind, are our imaginary, cultivated desires, or our reactions to life situation. We have been giving you examples from simple day to day, especially food, etc. because everybody is involved with food. In the corporate world, I'll give corporate examples. Arjuna was given always examples of battle, but apply this to every field of your life. How many grievances, how many desires, how many likes and dislikes, and how many self-impressions we have made of ourselves, when unintelligently or innocently, means without knowledge, we interact in life, whether it is our upbringing, whether it is our social interactions, whether it is imposed laws or regulations, all of these together have created our own self-limitations. Today, if you are a stubborn person, you are an arrogant person, you are a sweet person, you are a hypocrite, or you are an abruptly frank person, all of these are actually self-imposed limitations. Through our life's interactions, we create this for ourselves. When you expose your mind to meditation, to quietitude, aspiring to gain the truth, aspiring to gain the infinite, without any prejudice, without any likes and dislikes, without any veiling, when your mind is exposed to quietitude, what all is lying within you, which is creating agitations, sorrows, your reactions which you regret later on, your impulses, all these start getting exposed. And as these get eliminated, because you are not holding on to any one of them, if you learn to detach from the objects of the world, then only you can learn to detach from your own prejudices, your own notions, even about yourself or even God or the world. These are the subtle things which have to be removed in meditation. And one by one when these get eliminated, even in this world what comes as obstacles are nothing but your own mind's limitation. For example, a child finds a simple arithmetic sum difficult. It's a big, that's why they call it mathematical problem. It will be a major problem if you found 2 plus 2 difficult to solve. Is it not? It's our limitations only that make situations into problems. As you in meditation start dropping your limitations, every grievance you hold, every regret you hold, every anger you have towards your even elders, even parents, mind you, is limiting you. If in life you have gone through difficulties and you think that life is difficult, you see life only as difficulty and every situation that might be even easy will be difficult for you. If you grow up with the impression that nobody loves you, nobody cares for you, you become demanding, you become attention seeking and as much as attention you get, you will not feel satisfied because no one loves you. These impressions that we leave in our mind, these additives to your eye, these have to be dropped. These are the cause of your limitations. These are your cause of your difficulties. These are the cause of your sorrow. Divorcing them is recognizing that you are infinite. And therefore this path of spirituality, this path of knowledge and meditation to prepare for it, this path of dedicated service, this acceptance of things in life, all these are basically to be practiced with full sincerity because the goal that is reached is far greater than any material goal that you can attain. And if one can attain the infinite, then what in this world is impossible for that person? People start one institution and they think that they have done a big thing. What did these great masters, whether it was Vedvayasa, whether it was Shankaracharya, whether it was Buddha, whether it was Mahavir and whether we can see what Gurudev has created. The impossible becomes possible. And Krishna is giving this knowledge to Arjuna that what you think is impossible when you do with the right knowledge, the right spirit and with the right preparation. Not only you attain success but you prepare yourself for that great grand finale, the peace that passes all understanding. Not that only you become an achiever but you become the infinite. That way you have to understand this whole thing. So having said that, now Bhagawan goes to explain to Arjuna and finally what is attained? What is attained by such a person who has been able to detach not only from the sense, pleasures of the world, not only from one's equipments but the very false notion, feeling that one has. For one who has thus mastered his mind and not affected by the moods of the mind, such a person is not only the master of his mind, not only master of every situation or circumstances, is truly the master of the world. That is the gain. And what is that great grand vision? See how compassionate Bhagawan is. He says, understanding very clearly that when you start beginning to master this mind, and it is with this mind only that you have to remain firm and steady to your goal and here the goal being the highest, the infinite. Bhagawan says that this mind because of its habits, sometimes because of external stimuli, the mind and sometimes life situations also, suddenly there is an onslaught of say a war. You hear some bad news, it is going to affect instantly your mind because good and bad is also according to your own mind, your wants and desires, your likes and dislikes, your notions that you carry. And therefore, yatha yatha nishcharati manas chanchalam asthiram. Bhagawan only says this mind which is chanchal and asthiram. And therefore very often it is compared to monkey. We say, you know monkey mind. And who else can be an ideal for this monkey mind other than the well disciplined, well mastered monkey hanuman? Manah chanchalam asthiram. This mind which is chanchala always moving. And even when it kind of becomes steady on one thing, there also doubts and all will come. Asthiram cannot hold on to something for too long. First of all, jump from branch to branch to branch. And even if they sit on one branch, not too long and they are also restless. You've seen your mind also, no? Otherwise constantly you're running, they're everywhere. Then when you come to class also, for some time you sit, then tick tick. At least thank God none of you all are doing that but it does happen. If not at least looking at your book. So it starts happening. So Manah chanchala asthiram. So that mind which is chanchala and asthiram. And that's why it's so moody. The climates of the mind change faster than this mountain climate, isn't it? Sunny in the morning, windy in the afternoon, rain in the evening, cool at night, warm in the day. And your moods, how quickly it changes? So Manah chanchala asthiram. Now whatever may be the reason that your mind gets affected or your mind gets distracted. Yatha yatha nishcharati. The mind wanders away for whatever cause you get affected. This mind which is achalam and asthiram. Even about Hanuman it is said that when he was a kid, naturally full of energy, full of vitality, restless. And always remember mischievous kids, naughty kids are dynamic kids. There's difference between being mischievous and misbehaving. Their naughtiness, their fidgetiness should be given a direction. Otherwise if the mind is not given something to concentrate and work on, that restless mind will start destroying things around. And there were children, drop this, throw this, pick up that. And you are a mummy all the time. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. No, give them something constructive to do. That Hanumanji who was so restless that he had to be cursed by the Rishis whose things he would take and fly away, jump away, that you forget your power till somebody reminds you. And when was it reminded to him? When he got dedicated to Ram, when you give him the mind, something great and nobler, something mightier and supreme to be dedicated to, then that so-called unsteady monkey becomes a mighty force for any obstacle in the world to reckon with. For anybody, even Draavan to reckon with. So, yatha nishcharati manas chanchalam astiram. Whenever, whenever your mind, and especially when you are sitting in the seat of meditation, whenever your mind goes away and you detect it is gone, bring it back. So what if it goes? It only showing that you are not sleeping. If you are awake, your mind will get carried away. It will hear something and get carried away. Why are you condemning yourself? Your mind is active, it will react. But don't remain in that. You fell, get up. You got distracted, bring your mind back. Tathas tatha niyammi. From that, that you bring it back. And what do you do? Etad atmani eva vasam naith. Bring it back under the control of your self. With self, it means your, means that intellect which has got its dedication to the higher. And therefore, bring it back and immerse it in the atma, the highest. This is called as later on by Krishna himself as abhyas. Abhyasa yoga, a new term coined by Krishna. He is talking to new minds. This word abhyas yoga, even though abhyas is taught, but this name was not given. Which means through constant practice. Every time your mind gets affected, bring it back. Gets distracted, bring it back. Falls, lift it up. Uddhared atman atmanam. And through regular practice, the mind will come back. Now, two are the main distractions or obstacles in meditation. One is the distraction and reaction of the mind and the other is sleep. These two. Now sleep also is of two type. One is if you have not slept enough, you are not well, because of your tiredness, the sleep comes. This, as Bhagawan has already pointed out, this can be well controlled when you sleep at the right time, the right amount. That's why it's so important to be healthy also. And your sleep pattern determines your health. So you sleep at the right time, get up at the right time. For one who sleeps too much and one who sleeps too less, meditation is difficult. And one of the greatest jeopardizer of meditation is your sleep. Now, even when sleep comes to you, even if you have slept well, sleep comes to you for other reasons also. Suddenly this mind will say, yeah, this is not relevant to me. Or this I already know. So immediately, mind will find something to dream about. Devakrishna used the word swapna. See, when I link it up, otherwise people just sleep, translate, go ahead. If it was not like a guru like Gurudev, we would not understand the depth of meaning. It's easy to say, people meditate, meditate, meditate, but how? Don't sleep in meditation, but how? The moment your mind loses its interest in what the teacher is saying, or in your goal, even in life, material goal, or in meditation, where it is practicing and does not feel it's reaching there, or it feels it's a reputation of the same mantra, immediately the mind slips into a dream-like state. First, it will start naturally getting distracted. And this happens not only in meditation, it happens in everything you do. Whatever is happening in the seat of your meditation, it is happening at a greater degree in your dated life. Whether it's your relationship, whether it is your behaviour, whether it's your social, whether it's your success also, whether it's in your business, whether it's in your family, whether it's with your children, you'll find the same thing happening. The pattern repeats itself, because you have not mastered the mind. It starts drifting away. And once it has drifted away, either you get very excited with suddenly that new thought that you thought of going to Paris instead of coming to Siddhavadi. Then, to even more excited, you get totally distracted and then travel from Paris to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt, you lose your baggage, and therefore you go and do shopping in Italy, and then that's how the mind will travel. Or, if it gets distracted, it loses its interest, and because those thoughts just come on their own, you are not alert, you will fall asleep. You have to walk the thin banks of sleep to reach the other side, or reach your destination. How easy it is to slip into distraction, or sleep. On one side is the field of sense, objects, the other side is the deep sleep. So, what is between the... Indivisible, the kaavathya? Yeah. Huh? Devil and the deep sleep. Yeah? Now, you understand? Devil and the deep sea. Deep sleep and temptations. Can you see how you have to balance yourself? So, both these happen when you lose sight of your goal, you lose interest in your goal, you forget the purpose for which you even pursued spirituality or came to gain this knowledge, or even to meditate. When you lose sight of your goal, you will either go into boredom, sleep, or you will go into distraction or temptation. See how beautifully Krishna understands the psychology of the human mind. Mediation is not a crash course. It's not a crash course you can take. Then one day you will learn it and one day you will practice and the next day you will realize. The time is not in realization. The time it takes is to train this monkey mind. So, whether it is sleep or whether it is the apple. Yeah? Wherever your mind goes, again I said alertness and vigilance. A part of you should be watching, fully alert that the moment your mind goes out, before it starts jumping on one step and then on the fourth step and then on the tenth step. Before the ball begins to fall, hold the mind and bring it back. See how beautifully Bhagawan has said, deva tathas tatho niyamya. Bring it back. Now, these are the two obstacles. The restlessness of the mind and sleep of the mind. Different techniques also are pointed out that sometimes sleep just comes in meditation. Whenever it comes, they say stop condemning yourself and say, you know what to do, every time I sleep I go to sleep. Don't condemn yourself. In fact congratulate yourself. Because your mind knows only two states. Restlessness and quiet. The fact you went to sleep in meditation it only shows that you were able to quiet in your mind. Now be quiet and be awake, that's all. You are a step closer. If you were distracted and you recognized that you were distracted, don't despair. The fact that you recognized, at least you became alert sooner. Bring your mind back. Awaken your mind. And therefore, two beautiful methods Guru Dev taught us. One is, and I have seen it very very effective. Even if I have taken meditation in a hall of thousands or more people by first invoking the Guru, invoking the Lord, you even just pray or even just make a conviction that now may I pursue without any obstacles. That's why we always pray to Ganesh before. Sarva-vignopa-shantayi When our mind starts ridiculing this knowledge and remember one who goes with such a mind means, follows such a mind then one after another problems will come. Tata-ha atmani eva vasham nae eth Bring it under your mastery. It will distract. Bring it back. How long did it take the sincere Siddhartha to realize? How many mistakes? How many times the mind got carried away? How many times is Mara or Maya? How many times the devil came to tempt Jesus when they say, devil of your mind, your ego, your temptations, your vasanas, your past inhibitions, reactions, all this will distract your mind. So there are many such devils, many such asuras lurking in your, in the dark chambers of your mind. You expose it to knowledge, they weaken. You don't give in to them, they will lose. So don't give up. That is what Bhagawan is trying to say. If you want to listen to more of such content, please follow Chinmaya Mission Channel now. Hariyam.