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Hari Om !
Gita in Daily Life - Conquering the Wild Mind - Talk in English by Swami Aparajitananda, Chinmaya Mission Chicago.
Swamiji starts by explaining our own wild mind to us, by quoting the famous 6th Chapter verse from Śrīmad Bhagavad-Gītā. The common miserable experience of the seekers is their own wild mind which is aptly described by Arjuna while asking the question to the Lord, “How to control this wild mind? “ Krishna’s solution to Arjuna’s problem has been presented to us by Swamiji with his lucid explanation and examples.
Arjuna’s description of the wild mind-
• Chañchalaṁ - not just fickle, but extremely fickle
• Pramāthi - it is naturally negative. Worries, anxiety, and fear is its nature
• Balavad- extremely strong. Intellectually, a seeker knows what is right and wrong, but the mind forces a seeker to operate against his own intellectual convictions
• Dṛiḍham- stubborn, unyielding
Together all this is called the wild mind, which is like the wind!
With the help of the answer given by Bhagavān to Arjuna, Swamiji explains to us on how to conquer the wild mind.
1) Painfully be aware of the defects of rāga and dveṣa (like and dislike)- Likes and dislikes bind us in slavery, anxiety, worry, kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and mātsarya
2) Meditate on the impermanent nature of things, beings, and situations, to reduce dependency
3) Develop devotion for God
Certain questions answered in the lecture are-
1. It is possible to conquer the mind?
2. Why is the mind so wild?
3. What is the diagnosis and medicine provided by the Lord for the wild mind?
4. Where and why does the mind get attached?
5. What are the negative traits of the attached mind, or a mind filled with rāga and dveṣa?
6. How do we acquire this attachment?
7. How do we do rāga abhyās instead of vairāgy abhyās, and how we ourselves create a cage for our suffering
8. Is our present interaction with the world intelligent or unintelligent?
9. What is the relationship between our dependency on the world, and our miserable state of mind?
10. Who is responsible for my miseries?
Do not show vairāgya but know it, do not express it but keep it as your deepest secret. One who express vairāgya is definitely not a vairāgi.
One of the important messages in the lecture is that spirituality is a science of mastering your life, being truly independent, and making you happy.