teachings of swami vivekanand on mind

7/29/2019 Teachings of Swami Vivekanand on Mind

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. We have to seize this unstable mind and drag it from its wanderings and fix

it on one idea. Over and over again this must be done. By power of will we

must get hold of the mind and make it stop and reflect upon the glory of God.

#. The easiest way to get hold of the mind is to sit quiet and let it drift where

it will for a while. Hold fast to the idea, "I am the witness watching my mind

drifting. The mind is not I." Then see it think as if it were a thing entirely apart

from yourself. Identify yourself with God, never with matter or with the mind.

Picture the mind as a calm lake stretched before you and the thoughts that

come and go as bubbles rising and breaking on its surface. Make no effort to

control the thoughts, but watch them and follow them in imagination as they

float away. This will gradually lessen the circles. For the mind ranges over

wide circles of thought and those circles widen out into ever increasing

circles, as in a pond when we throw a stone into it. We want to reverse the

process and starting with a huge circle make it narrower until at last we canfix the mind on one point and make it stay there. Hold to the idea, "I am not

the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act', and each day

the identification of yourself with thought and feeling will grow less, until at

last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to

be apart from yourself. When this is done, the mind is your servant to control

as you will. The first stage of being a yogi is to go beyond the senses. When

the mind is conquered, he has reached the highest stage.

#. The flow of this continuous control of the mind becomes steady whenpractised day after day, and the mind obtains the faculty of constant

concentration.

#. The purer the mind, the easier it is to control. Purity of the mind must be

insisted upon if you would control it.....Perfect morality is the all in all of the

complete control over mind. The man who is perfectly moral has nothing

more to do; he is free.

#. Q--How is it that desires rise even after mental concentration is acquired?

A--Those are the outcomes of the previous Samskaras (deep-rooted

impressions or tendencies). When Buddha was on the point of merging in

Samadhi (superconsciousness), Mara made his appearance. There was really

no Mara extraneous to the mind; it was only the external reflection of the

mind's previous Samskaras.


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#. The mind has to be gradually and systematically brought under control.

The will has to be strengthened by slow, continuous and persevering drill.

This is no child's play, no fad to be tried one day and discarded the next. It is

a life's work; and the end to be attained is well worth all that it can cost us toreach it; being nothing less than the realization of our absolute oneness with

the Divine. Surely, with this end in view, and with the knowledge that we can

certainly succeed, no price can be too great to pay.

#. Sit for some time and let the mind run on. You simply wait and watch.

Knowledge is power, says the proverb, and that is true. Until you know what

the mind is doing you cannot control it. Give it the rein; many hideous

thoughts may come into it; you will be astonished that it was possible for you

to think such thoughts. But you will find that each day the mind's vagaries

are becoming less and less violent, that each day it is becoming calmer.

#. Give up all argumentation and other distractions. Is there anything in dry

intellectual jargon? It only throws the mind off its balance and disturbs it.

Things of subtler plane has to be realized. Will talking do that? So give up all

vain talk. Read only those books which has been writted by persons who have

had realization.

#. Think of your own body, and see that it is strong and healthy; it is the best

instrument you have. Think of it as being as strong as adamant, and that with

the help of this body you will cross the ocean of life. Freedom is never to be

reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is

strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in

yourself.

#. You must practise at least twice every day, and the best times are towards

the morning and the evening. When night passes into day, and day intonight, a state of relative calmness ensues. The early morning and the early

evening are the two periods of calmness. Your body will have a like tendency

to become calm at those times. We should take advantage of that natural

condition and begin then to practise.


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#. Mentally repeat: Let all beings be happy; Let all beings be peaceful; Let all

beings be blissful. So do to the east, south, north and west. The more you do

that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest way

to make ourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest

way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy. After doing

that, those who believe in God should pray---not for money, not for health,not for heaven; pray for knowledge and light; every other prayer is selfish.

#. The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming

cheerful. When a man is gloomy that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion.

To the Yogi, everything is bliss, every human face that he sees brings

cheerfulness to him. That is the sign of a virtuous man. What business have

you with clouded faces? It is terrible. If you have a clouded face, do not go

out that day, shut yourself up in your room. What right have you to carry this

disease out into the world.

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Mind is like a lake, and every thought is like a wave upon that lake. Just as in

the lake waves rise, and then fall down and disappear, so these thought-

waves are continually rising in the mind-stuff, and then disappearing, but

they do not disappear for ever. They become finer and finer, but they are all

there, ready to start up at another time, when called upon to do so.

#. How hard it is to control the mind! Well has it been compared to the

maddened monkey. There was a monkey, restless by his own nature, as all

monkeys are. As if that were not enough someone made him drink freely of

wine, so that he became more restless. Then a scorpion stung him. When a

man is stung by a scorpion, he jumps about for a whole day; so the poor

monkey found his condition worse than ever. To complete his misery a

demon entered into him. What language can describe the uncontrollable

restlessness of that monkey? The human mind is like that monkey,

incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with the wine of

desire, thus increasing its turbulance. After desire takes possession comes

the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all

the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.

How hard to control such a mind!


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#. All minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one

lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and

controls his own mind, knows the secret of every mind, and has power over

every mind.

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#. Mind is like a lake, and every thought is like a wave upon that lake. Just as

in the lake waves rise, and then fall down and disappear, so these thought-

waves are continually rising in the mind-stuff, and then disappearing, but

they do not disappear for ever. They become finer and finer, but they are all

there, ready to start up at another time, when called upon to do so.

#. The highest men are calm, silent and unknown. They are the men whoreally know the power of thoughts; they are sure that, even if they go into a

cave and close the door and simply think five true thoughts and then pass

away, these five thoughts of theirs will live through eternity. Indeed such

thoughts will penetrate through the mountains, cross the oceans, and travel

through the world.

#. It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the

highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after month.

#. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; think of it; dream of it; live

on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of

that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success,

and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.

#. Every vicious though will rebound, every thought of hatred which you have

thought, in a cave even, is stored up, and will one day come back to you with

tremendous power in the form of some misery here. If you project hatred and

jealousy, they will rebound on you with compound interest. No power can

avert them; when once you have put them in motion you will have to bear

them. Remembering this will prevent you from doing wicked things.

#. We are heirs to all the good thoughts of the universe, if we open ourselves


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to them.

#. Every thought is a little hammer blow on the lump of iron which our bodies

are, manufacturing out of it what we want to be.

#. We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care of what you think.

. Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another work

which is above consciousness, and which also is not accompanied with the

feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane. When

the mind is above or below that line there is no feeling of "I", and yet the

mind works. When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness it iscalled Samadhi or superconsciousness.

#. When the mind is free from activity or functioning, it vanishes and the Self

is revealed. This state has been described by the commentator Shankara

as ...supersensuous state.

#. Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there is another

work which is above consciousness, and which also is not accompanied withthe feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane.

When the mind is above or below that line there is no feeling of "I", and yet

the mind works. When the mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness it

is called Samadhi or superconsciousness.

#. When the mind is free from activity or functioning, it vanishes and the Self

is revealed. This state has been described by the commentator Shankara

as ...supersensuous state.

#. In the study of religion the control of the mind is absolutely necessary. We

have to turn the mind back upon itself in this study.

#. Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us


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see God. If you know one soul (your own), you know all souls, past, present

and to come. The will concentrates the mind, certain things excite and

control this will, such as reason, love, devotion, breathing, etc. The

concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.

The mind takes up various objects, runs into all sorts of things. That is the

lower state. There is a higher state of the mind, when it takes up one subject,

and excludes all others...

#. Meditation is the focussing of the mind on some object. If the mind

acquires concentration on one object, it can be so concentrated on any object

whatsoever.

#. The mind tries to think of one object, to hold itself to one particular spot,

as the top of the head, the heart, etc,....and if the mind succeeds in receiving

the sensations only through that part of the body, and through no other part,

that would be Dharana, and when the mind succeeds in keeping itself in that

state for some time it is called Dhyana (meditation).

#. Everybody's mind becomes concentrated at times. We all concentrate

upon those things we love, and we love those things upon which weconcentrate our minds.

#. How are we to know that the mind has become concentrated? Because the

idea of time will vanish. The more time passes unnoticed the more

concentrated we are. In common life we see that when we are interested in a

book we do not note the time at all, and when we leave the book we are

often surprised to find how many hours have passed. All the time will have

the tendency to come and stand in the one present. So the definition is given,

when the past and present come and stand in one, the mind is said to be

concentrated.

#. We should put our mind on things; they should not draw our minds to

them. We are usually forced to concentrate. Our minds are forced to become

fixed upon different things by an attraction in them which we cannot resist.

To control the mind, to place it just where we want it, requires special


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training. It cannot be done in any other way.

#. How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the

concentration of the powers of the mind? The world is ready to give up its

secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The

strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit

to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more

power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret.

#. Concentration is the essence of all knowledge; nothing can be done

without it. Ninety percent of thought force is wasted by the ordinary human

being, and therefore he is constantly committing blunders; the trained man

or mind never makes a mistake.

#. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can't concentrate

their minds at will.

#. When the mind is concentrated and turned back on itself, all within us will

be our servants, not our masters....

#. Herein is the difference between man and the animals--man has the

greater power of concentration. The difference in their power of

concentration also constitutes the difference between man and man.

Compare the lowest with the highest man. The difference is in the degree of

concentration. This is the only difference.

#. We have to seize this unstable mind and drag it from its wanderings and

fix it on one idea. Over and over again this must be done. By power of will we

must get hold of the mind and make it stop and reflect upon the glory of God.

#. The easiest way to get hold of the mind is to sit quiet and let it drift where

it will for a while. Hold fast to the idea, "I am the witness watching my mind

drifting. The mind is not I." Then see it think as if it were a thing entirely apart

from yourself. Identify yourself with God, never with matter or with the mind.


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Picture the mind as a calm lake stretched before you and the thoughts that

come and go as bubbles rising and breaking on its surface. Make no effort to

control the thoughts, but watch them and follow them in imagination as they

float away. This will gradually lessen the circles. For the mind ranges over

wide circles of thought and those circles widen out into ever increasing

circles, as in a pond when we throw a stone into it. We want to reverse theprocess and starting with a huge circle make it narrower until at last we can

fix the mind on one point and make it stay there. Hold to the idea, "I am not

the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act', and each day

the identification of yourself with thought and feeling will grow less, until at

last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to

be apart from yourself. When this is done, the mind is your servant to control

as you will. The first stage of being a yogi is to go beyond the senses. When

the mind is conquered, he has reached the highest stage.

#. The flow of this continuous control of the mind becomes steady when

practised day after day, and the mind obtains the faculty of constant

concentration.

#. The purer the mind, the easier it is to control. Purity of the mind must be

insisted upon if you would control it.....Perfect morality is the all in all of the

complete control over mind. The man who is perfectly moral has nothing

more to do; he is free.

#. Q--How is it that desires rise even after mental concentration is acquired?

A--Those are the outcomes of the previous Samskaras (deep-rooted

impressions or tendencies). When Buddha was on the point of merging in

Samadhi (superconsciousness), Mara made his appearance. There was really

no Mara extraneous to the mind; it was only the external reflection of the

mind's previous Samskaras.

#. The mind has to be gradually and systematically brought under control.The will has to be strengthened by slow, continuous and persevering drill.

This is no child's play, no fad to be tried one day and discarded the next. It is

a life's work; and the end to be attained is well worth all that it can cost us to

reach it; being nothing less than the realization of our absolute oneness with

the Divine. Surely, with this end in view, and with the knowledge that we can

certainly succeed, no price can be too great to pay.


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#. Sit for some time and let the mind run on. You simply wait and watch.

Knowledge is power, says the proverb, and that is true. Until you know what

the mind is doing you cannot control it. Give it the rein; many hideous

thoughts may come into it; you will be astonished that it was possible for youto think such thoughts. But you will find that each day the mind's vagaries

are becoming less and less violent, that each day it is becoming calmer.

#. Give up all argumentation and other distractions. Is there anything in dry

intellectual jargon? It only throws the mind off its balance and disturbs it.

Things of subtler plane has to be realized. Will talking do that? So give up all

vain talk. Read only those books which has been writted by persons who have

had realization.

#. Think of your own body, and see that it is strong and healthy; it is the best

instrument you have. Think of it as being as strong as adamant, and that with

the help of this body you will cross the ocean of life. Freedom is never to be

reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is

strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in

yourself.

#. You must practise at least twice every day, and the best times are towardsthe morning and the evening. When night passes into day, and day into

night, a state of relative calmness ensues. The early morning and the early

evening are the two periods of calmness. Your body will have a like tendency

to become calm at those times. We should take advantage of that natural

condition and begin then to practise.

#. Mentally repeat: Let all beings be happy; Let all beings be peaceful; Let all

beings be blissful. So do to the east, south, north and west. The more you do

that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest wayto make ourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest

way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy. After doing

that, those who believe in God should pray---not for money, not for health,

not for heaven; pray for knowledge and light; every other prayer is selfish.


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#. The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming

cheerful. When a man is gloomy that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion.

To the Yogi, everything is bliss, every human face that he sees brings

cheerfulness to him. That is the sign of a virtuous man. What business have

you with clouded faces? It is terrible. If you have a clouded face, do not go

out that day, shut yourself up in your room. What right have you to carry thisdisease out into the world.

. What is the proof of God? Direct perception, Pratyaksha. The proof of this

wall is that I perceive it. God has been perceived by all who want to perceive

Him. But this perception is no sense perception at all; it is supersensuous,

superconscious.

#. We have to sense God to be convinced that there is a God. We must sense

the facts of religion to know that they are facts. Nothing else, and no amount

of reasoning, but our own perceptions can make these things real to us, can

make my belief firm as a rock.

#. Truth has such a face that anyone who sees that face becomes convinced.

The sun does not require any torch to show it; the sun is self-effulgent. If

truth requires evidence, what will evidence that evidence?

#. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there are

existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face

to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an

all-merciful universal soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see Him, and that

alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the

soul, about God is--- "I have seen the soul; I have seen God."

teachings of swami vivekanand on mind

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