Control of the mind is a very interesting inner game. If you have a sportsman attitude you will thoroughly enjoy it, even apparently if it seems that you are losing. It takes a great deal of skill, alertness, sense of humor, goodness of heart, sense of strategy and patience to control the mind and enables an individual not to get disheartened in the face of even hundreds of failures.

The three basic facts about mind control are:

a.That it has always been an extremely difficult task even for heroic persons of the stature of Arjuna.
b.That yet it is possible to control mind.
c.That there are well defined methods for controlling mind.

In order to control the mind, firstly, it is very important to strengthen our will. It cannot be said that we have no will to control the mind. The very fact that all of us have our own inner struggles indicates that we do have our own personal will. But in 99% of the cases this will is not strong enough to control the mind. Our will to control the mind will never be strong enough until and unless we have deliberately and irrevocably renounced pleasure as one of the main pursuits of life. By rejecting of the endless chase for pleasure is not meant abandonment of the pursuits of joy or bliss. By pleasure is meant enjoying of sense-pleasures. The scourge which eats up the vivacity of our will power to control our mind is what we call the pursuit of pleasure.

For instance, say you have a servant who is aware of the fact that you depend on him for the production of illicit drugs and other intoxicants. After the production of the drugs you sit and enjoy the same together with the servant. Then it will not be possible for you to control your servant, though you are his master. The same is the case with the mind.

The mind which we use for seeking and enjoying pleasure can never be under our control until we give up seeking pleasure. Even after giving up the pursuit of pleasure it will not be easy to control it for the mind will always have past incidents to cite to embarrass us. The strength of our will to control our mind will be in proportion to the strength and intensity of our renunciation of the pursuit of pleasure. Unless the pleasure motive is overcome, no matter what we do or how hard we try, it will never be possible for us to control the mind. Thus, the derivative of this truth is that those of us who are reluctant to renounce the pleasure-motive are not sincere enough in wanting to control their mind, whatever their professions may be.

Now, in order to strengthen our will power and will force, firstly we have to remove the causes of weaknesses of will and we have to inject strength into us by ensuring the presence of suitable causes. Another reason for the weakness of our will is that most of us perhaps not clearly thought what exactly is at stake in the control of the mind. If we had, the sheer instinct for survival would have driven us to strengthen our will to control our mind. As regards our failures to control the mind, we need not be unduly exercised. It has never been an easy task even for the noblest of men, to control the mind by strengthening the will power.

Thus, the most important thing is to strengthen the will to such degree that even in the face of repeated failures we will not get easily disheartened. Rather with every new failure to control the mind we are roused to new and fresh endeavors with absolutely new and fresh enthusiasm. It is indeed a heroic task. Hence occasional or repeated drawbacks or failures to control the mind should not be taken seriously. Moreover, failures should be taken as spurs to more determined, sustained and intelligent efforts.

Abhishek Lodha

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