Control Over the Mind

Swami Vivekananda, during his teachings pertaining to Patanjali’s yoga aphorisms, observed as to how to hold our mind in our day-to-day life. Swamiji said friendship, mercy, gladness and indifference, when applied to subjects (or thoughts) that come before us that are good, suffering, prospering and evil, respectively, would pacify our mind.

Explanation: when thoughts arise, they should be checked before being acted upon. When the subject is a good one, constructive in nature, we should befriend it, that is, adopt it.

When the subject is one of the difficulty of fellow beings, we need to take a merciful stance. If it is a case of prosperity and progress of others, then, instead of getting prejudiced and envious, we should be rather happy. Lastly, when the subject is evil in nature — contrary to the values we need to uphold — we should show indifference towards it; say, touch it not even with the toes of our feet.

If our current problems are micro analysed, we may come to realise that we would have failed to ‘hold’ our mind in one or more ways from aforementioned dispositions.

In a corporate environment, for example, adopt excellence in work and friendship, be considerate to sufferings of colleagues, be merciful, be comfortable in the midst of progress of co-employees (gladness) with healthy peer pressure, and not be vindictive to colleagues (indifference to evil).

If we rein in our mind as advised by Swami Vivekananda, we can help ourselves avoid a lot of pitfalls, and be more peaceful.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.