Mind : ( 24/10/2012. )

                                                         An element in a well-ordered life is to have a stable background of thought. Most of us suffer due to an absence of this stability in our inner life; we depend mostly on conditions prevailing outside, and we may be said to be living more an outward life than an inward one. The outer conditions of life seem to be determining our personality to such an extent that whatever happens outside seems to have a direct bearing on our personal life. Like the winds that blow in different directions according to the vicissitude of seasons, our personality seems to shift its scene of activity and experience on account of a precarious dependence on outer circumstances. We are always in a state of mood, as we call it, either elated or depressed, on account of getting influenced by factors beyond our control. It is something like floating on the surface of the ocean and being tossed up and down, hither and thither by the violent waves, h

                                                              Swami Krishnananda Your Questions Answered : Spanish Visitor: Swamiji, what is the mind, and how do thoughts originate? How do these thoughts originate in our mind? SWAMIJI: When your personality starts, when you come into being, the mind also comes into being, because you are the mind itself. The one who is speaking to me just now is the mind speaking, and it originates the moment the Mr. so-and-so that you are originates. When did you originate? How did you come into being? Mind is the consciousness of individuality, and the moment individuality arises, the consciousness of individuality also operates, simultaneously. In early babyhood, it is in a very minute incipient form. When the individuality becomes more and more mature, the consciousness of individuality, which is called the mind, also becomes more and more clear. When you were a little baby, your consciousness of your individuality was very vague.

A togetherness of all thoughts in one thought is the principle of yoga. Now, this one thought is not another thought, different from all the thoughts which have to merge into this one thought. The one thought, so-called, becomes not a total of all the thoughts; rather, it is an amalgam of many thoughts, which move in different directions. Bees manufacture honey by moving from one flower to another. They collect a hundred varieties of pollen and manufacture what we call honey. But honey is not an admixture of all the pollen of different flowers. It is a blend, an amalgam, a quintessence, the very base, undivided in its nature, not divisible into the varieties of pollen. We cannot dissect honey and find the different kinds of pollen. Another example is, when many different types of water are put together they make one water, and this one water is not an admixture because when many waters become one, the manyness merges into a single water. Similarly, the one thought which inclu

                                                   Swami Krishnananda The Harmonisation of Mind and Breath :  ---------------------------------------------------------- It will be observed that we hold our breath during any act of concentration in our daily lives. When we are walking along the edge of a precipice, we hold our breath. When we climb a tree, we hold our breath. Perhaps when walking on a tightrope, the circus performer also holds his breath. When we are about to do something which requires our total attention, or at least most of it, our breath is automatically held. It is not that we are deliberately doing pranayama here, but our breath is suspended of its own accord. This shows the mutual relationship between thought and the vital force. It is impossible for the mind to concentratedly pay attention to anything when the breath is heaving like a bellows. When we concentrate while listening to a lecture, we hold our breath. When we gaze at an object with awe-inspi

                                                    Swami Chinmayananda  We were discussing how by refusing to feed the mind (abhavana) with object perceptions (vishaya-bhavana) the mind shall slowly grind to a stop. Some rishis go still further and declare that the meditator should give up even the attitude (bhavana) that he is an "imaginative-thinking-entity" (sankalpavan.) It is the mind's function to think, to feel or to imagine in short, to make sankalpas. These feelings and thoughts cannot arise, and they cannot be maintained by themselves, without an intimate reference to the thinker-feeler-ego. When the idea "I am the thinker-feeler" is renounced by a meditator, he becomes, thereafter, an interested "observer" of the "flood of thoughts" rising in himself, and, soon enough, the very gurgling springs of his thoughts dry up in him.. The mind in him then, in due course, ends. In the egoless attitude of detachment one's mind beco