Mind : ( 24/10/2012. )

　 ‘Why Meditate?’ The purpose of meditation is to study, understand and evaluate one’s mind. 　 　 O ne generally uses the mind without knowing how it functions. We live in our houses. Do we know how the house is built and what are the technical skills employed in it ? What is the finish generally given to the wall, what should be the thickness of the walls or what should be the strength of the foundation – a number of such points are to be looked into before the house is built. But we don’t know all these and yet we live in the house. Similarly we employ many gadgets while living and working. We use them freely. But we may not know anything of the technology used in producing these gadgets. 　 I n the same manner, every one is using his or her mind; but the user does not necessarily know what exactly is the mind. 　 In the case of the many articles we use including the house, we may not know their details, because the technology and production are handled by ...

An exclusive application of the mind :- --------------------------------------------------------- Meditation is an exclusive effort – an exclusive pursuit and application of the mind. Sitting in front of a deity and chanting God's name need not be meditation. Meditator sits in a comfortable pose of stillness and the effort is made by the mind and mind alone. The effort is to make the mind clear and still. What happens to the mind when the body is completely still? Mind continues to generate ripples and vibrations – thoughts and emotions. A particular thought may produce fear, another, intolerance. All these are emotional evolutes of the thought process. A thought generally implies a word, letter or an idea. Mind can also do figurative imagination. When we meditate upon the figure of Lord Vishnu, the mind becomes that figure. The figure can be substituted by a letter or a word as the object of meditation; figure or word, the common factor is the application of the mind in ...

Anger and how to control on it ? Follow Srimad Bhagavadgeeta :- atha kena prayukto.ayaü pàpaü carati påruùaþ | anicchannapi vàrùõeya balàdiva niyojitaþ || Arjuna said:— Impelled by what, does man commit sin, much against his wishes, O Varshneya, compelled as it were, by force? Gita Ch: III-36. kàma eùa krodha eùa rajoguõasamudbhavaþ | mahà÷ano mahàpàpmà viddhyenamiha vairiõàm || The Blessed Lord said:— It is desire, it is anger born of the Rajo-Guna, all devouring, all sinful; know this as the foe here (in this world). Gita Ch. III-37. The cause of sin or wrong action in this world is desire. Anger is only a modification or form of desire. Anger is desire itself. When a desire is not gratified the man becomes angry against those who stand as obstacles in the path of fulfilment. The desire is born of the quality of Rajas. When desire arises, it generates Rajas and urges the man to work in order to possess the object. Therefore know that this desire is man’s ...

Speech delivered by Swami Vivekananda at the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago 15th September, 1893 I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, "Let us cease from abusing each other," and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came an...

When we analyze our lives, we find that to live a life of fulfillment there must be two basic abilities. One is involvemental in nature. We have to go ahead with life, getting involved in whatever is necessary from time to time. For this, we must have the necessary attitude, inspiration, compulsion and many other things. The net result of all this is an involvemental phase. We must be ready to take up whatever we are expected to do and get involved in it with full dedication and sincerity. The other is the ability and readiness to withdraw from any involvement and remain peaceful and quiet. Whatever comes or goes, the march of life cannot stop. So, to keep the stability and peace, often the mind will require withdrawal. We must be able to do both, easily and harmoniously. Then alone, we may hope to live a life of fulfillment and peace. And such a life will be beneficial to the world at large. Dear N, you are very young and you have a long life ahead. To live a good and effective ...

 Two verses of the Bhagavadgita:  "uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānam avasādayet ātmaiva hy ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ. Bandhur ātmātmanas tasya yenātmaivātmanā jitaḥ, anātmanas tu śatrutve vartetātmaiva śatruvat (Gita 6.5-6)."  We discussed the hidden meaning of these two verses – the raising of oneself by oneself. We belong to two realms of being, the phenomenal and the noumenal, as philosophers generally tell us. The phenomenality of our life consists in our limitation to the conditions of space, time, and causation. We think of everything in terms length, breadth, and height. This is the quantitative assessment of the things of the world. Everything is a quantity – it has some substance, and it is measurable in terms of length, breadth, and height. This is one of the conditions to which our mind is subject. You cannot think of anything without attributing to it a quantity, some shape, which is a characteristic of our involvement in spatial characterist...

Our subject is the yoga of meditation, which has direct connection with what we call the mind, or the mind-stuff. We may have a commonplace, lay-person’s idea that the mind is inside the body, and it is moving within us like a ball of mercury, shifting its position from one place to another place. The mind is neither inside the body, nor is it outside the body; it is just what we are. The quantum of energy, capacity, and confidence that we have in our own selves is the mind operating. Our value is not in what we possess as an external commodity from the world, but is the manner we are thinking in our mind. This is not a difficult thing to understand. Whatever may be our quantity of material wealth in this world, if our mind does not agree to accommodate itself with this idea of possession, the possession becomes null and void. It is well said that we are what we think we are. What do we think we are? What is the opinion that we have about our own selves? The answer would be a bund...