Its a time to party….

No reason really – just for the week end sake – or for the week gone by...

Daughter, Wify, Self, Brother, Brother’s Wify

Daughter, Wify, Brother’s Wify

An article written by my father on "THE MIND"

The mind has such an effect on us that all our actions are guided by our mind. We arrange for many worldly possessions to please our mind. But worldly possessions alone do not give us the real peace. The more we possess the more our mind demands. Whole our life passes in pursuit of happiness through possessions but the real happiness continues to evade us.

One who has no control over his mind cannot have peace of mind. We cannot expect happiness unless we have peace of mind. We may turn obstinate and irrational as victims of passions, emotion and tension. On the other hand one can succeed even in adverse circumstances through control of mind.

The worldly possessions alone cannot give us the happiness we are trying to seek. The happiness comes through control of mind. But controlling the mind appears difficult . However, difficult though, it is possible to control the mind to a great extent with strong will, by knowing nature of mind and following certain techniques to control the mind.. We cannot control our mind without renouncing pleasure. It however dose not mean that we renounce joy (bliss). Total control is possible only through pursuit of spiritual life. In order to control our mind we need to understand its basic nature.

Mind is a finer body within the gross body. It is distinct from organ of the body. Behind mind is Atma.The matter is convertible into mind. Mind, even though has no form is part of the body. One affects the other. Mind in its basic form is pure and transparent like pure water, it is a reflection of our inner Spirit, `Atman`. We fail to feel the true nature of our mind because of impurities around it. These impurities are `The three Gunas` i.e.Tamas, Rajas and Sattava. The constitution of individual mind is determined by various combinations and permutation of these Gunas Once these impurities of minds are removed control of mind becomes easier.

Some of the difficulties which come in our way of control of our mind are :-

 Strong likes and dislikes
 Immoral life
 Harming others
 Intoxication
 Inordinate inquisitiveness
 Unbalanced life e.g. Eat,drink, talk, work or sleep too little or too much.
 Over ambitious
 Feeling of guilt ie. lack of faith in one self

In order to build up favorable inner climate we need to understand certain inevitable in life like old age, disease, death, separation and loss of worldly possessions.

The impurities of mind can be gradually removed by changing its constitution. First the Sattava must predominate over the other two Gunas. Finally, it is true, Sattava has to be transcended; but first it has to predominate. In order to purify our mind we need to know the causes of impurities of our mind. The list is long, starting from Pralabhd to our present day environment. Since we have no control on our past except for praying forgiveness, we need to pay attention to our food and environment in which we live. (Here food means all intakes through our sense organs), affecting our mind. Food should be light (Alap Ahar-Guru Gobind Singh) and the type which does not lead our mind to Tamas Guna, ie. inertia. The company we keep has great affect on our mind. So has the environment which includes place, time, and cleanliness (swaschhatha).


Having attended to the food we need to pay attention to its restlessness. In Raj Yoga Swami Vivekananda describes the restlessness of mind:

`How hard it is to control the mind! Well it has 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 some one made him drink freely of wine, so that he became still more restless. Then a scorpion stung him. To complete his misery a demon entered into him. What language can describe the uncontrollable restlessness of that monkey? Human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes sting of scorpion of jealousy of the success of others, and the last of demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance. How hard to control such a mind? `
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Having purified our mind we make an effort to deal with its restlessness nature The mind is initially in scattered form. The next stage is darkening then gathering followed by concentration and finally one pointed. While Gathering and concentration stages can be achieved through practice (Abhyas) and dispassion (Vairagya), one pointed concentration is not possible without spiritual pursuit ie., meditation.

Last aspect about the mind is its nature to be under the mistaken impression (Bharam) that we are different from all pervading limitless Him (whatever name we give) ie. false identification of one's real Self with the non-self , giving rise to the idea of `me and mine` Effective practice of positive thought can overcome this Bharam. This aspect is basically spiritual and can be pursued through spiritual exercise.

Do you have to time to Live life?.....

My daughter

(1995)

Brother's daughter, His son, My son and My daughter

Must try this after a drink

Everywhere I see - I see depression, tension and people spiralling down in the lives, not living -- just marking their days -- passing time, wishing that the day goes by - waiting eagerly for the next day and when that arrives not knowing what to do with it. What has gone wrong? I see that the divorce has become everyday affair. Was materially being more comfortable meant to give us more problems? Or was it to solve our everyday problems? The satisfaction is just not there -- in our work, in play, in family, in children, in friends..... where do we head from here? Have we become our own slaves, slaves to a desires, slaves to time, slaves to our work? How do we break the rigmarole of daily routine and live our lives?

Sorry -- that's a sentence with too many question marks. But I do know about to put it across any other way. I was slipping through my album and saw the photographs of my daughter -- just born in my hands -- today I have discussions with her as we are good friends. I realised that time has flown by. I do not regret any moment of my life because I have tried to live it to the maximum - living within the self constraints of morals. And this is what I teach my children also -- I tell them whenever the times are bad to not wish them away -- because the time that goes by never comes back. I tried to explain to them live life whether it is good and bad or ugly to the fullest. Enjoy every moment that you live. In all this I have tried to throw in the salt of their responsibilities to the nature, society and each other. I am sure and pray that they will be good citizens of tomorrow.

I wanted to ask - what does ' living life' mean? Does it have a separate meaning for me and for others? are now trying to press an early retirement from this uniform -- make some neat money and spend the time I like doing the most. Nature, photography, reading, music, movies and of course donating to the poor FIIs.

hell -- too much time daydreaming -- let me get back to work.