Mind Your Mind

Mind Control

Dr. P H Waghodekar

Mind Your MIND and Meditation

Mind is a concept like gravity, electric current or “Prana” that cannot be seen but their effects can be sensed and realized. One says mind is abstract, another says it is an entity.  Controlling such a mind using mindless tactics is not a mindful way! The Eastern and Western ways of looking at mind differ. Western philosophers talk of mind in terms of libido, ego and superego, whereas, Eastern philosophers unfold a different approach for mind, e.g., see Table 1.

 

Mind is housed in the cage of human body. The mind is get conditioned by the environment in which a man is brought up over a period of time. This period in fact commences right from the moment a baby is conceived in a mother’s womb. Mind accumulates and saves many experiences, feelings, emotions, and several other psyche matters through the five senses of human body. It means that mind is inclined to project (extrapolate) the future from the past. It thus always attempts to stay in a process of continuity. Obviously a conditioned mind can hardly stay in the present because for such a mind present is the future of the past and at the same time it is also the past of the future. Thus, the mind is in a constant habit of projecting future based on the past experiences, feelings, etc., and never lives in the present. In other words, mind stays in a continuity of time frame. Mind never goes in a timeless state. If anyhow, one could interrupt this continuing chain of thoughts, one can stay in an uninterrupted and timeless state, which is really a thoughtless state of mind. However, it is next to impossible to achieve this state. In order to achieve this state, there is a need to bring out a state in which the body, nerves and mind must stay permanently in a pure state. But how does one to achieve this purity of body, nerves and mind? Here Patanjali comes to our rescue. Patanjali starts with the first four Yoga instruments (see Table 1), which duly take care of the outer world wherein an individual gets transformed, i.e., one becomes more and more cultured: a march towards Total Quality people. Obviously, these first four instruments deal with body and nerves trying to make these purer and purer. In such a healthy body, healthy mind resides. Abstinence and observance help in these regards. For instance, non-indulgence (Brahmacharya: not celibacy in a true sense) indicates such concepts as cessation of the frittering away of one’s energies, abstinence from all displays, synchronization of the event and experience, conservation of energy and also renewal of energy, etc. Likewise, all the first four Yoga instruments can be analyzed and represented. Why are all these chores essential? This is essential because observed is always a projection of an observer, i.e., the mind. To put it simply, one perceives what the mind wants to perceive which may be far away from the truth. For instance, one gets a feel of a serpent on a rope lying in dark. The first four instruments help us march towards the truth. “Pratyahar”, as mentioned earlier, is a bridge joining the first four Yoga instruments to the remaining three. It points towards sensorial digression and perception inferences. It generates a state of relaxation. Relaxation is an outcome of reeducation of both senses and mind. This leads to a process of meditation, an effortless (relaxed) type of concentration involving only total (relaxed) attention, which brings about the true perception of the focal point in the thoughtless, timeless, and totally empty mind. Swami Vivekananda also advocates “There is only one method by which to attain knowledge, that which is called concentration”.

Meditation thus means to see with absolute clarity a stream of thoughts. However, meditation is not a thought process. It is a clear and uninterrupted observation of a thought process. This thought process emanates from the focal point: that subject or problem on which one wishes to focus one’s total attention. Meditation is indeed emptying of the mind of all its contents. Surprisingly enough, however, mind cannot be emptied, it empties itself. Thus, meditation can be considered as a three-fold process of awareness, attention and communion, i.e., the last three instruments (see Sutra III-4 of “Patanjali Yoga Sutras”). Today one hears much fuss about deteriorating quality of education. Is it really so? What are the quality assessment measures adopted in the Indian education system during the last six decades? One can easily point out that present infrastructure including qualifications of teachers is better than that available in the past, but the teachers of the past carried certain remains and values, although in a much diluted form, of the “Gurukul” system. How to overcome this issue? What is the ultimate goal of education? It is to evolve a total quality life of students throughout their life cycle generating Total Quality People. And to produce such students is indeed a creative job demanding certain personal sacrifices on the teacher’s part. Yoga can help generate such perception of the job. To sum up, though extraneous factors like infrastructure, academic qualifications, teaching aids like multimedia, training, etc., no doubt play an important role, but the factors “within” play even a more vital role. Gurus were in line with this.

It is quite interesting to see Yoga model vis a vis some models of this era. For example, Maslow’s motivation model cannot reason out why a few (great) personalities go on working independently, free from the clutches of hierarchical needs of motivation. Maslow calls them as self-actualized people. In fact, self-actualization, the ending point of the Maslow’s motivation model, is the very starting point for the Patanjali’s model. Another interesting model is that of Covey which deals with seven habits of highly effective people. These seven habits are:

1. Be proactive.

2. Begin with the end in mind.

3. Put first things first.

4. Think win/win.

5. See first to understand, then to be understood.

6. Synergize.

7. Sharpen the saw.

Cavey has classified these habits in three main domains, namely, first three habits as private victory (paradigm of dependence to independence), next three as public victory (paradigm of independence to interdependence) and the last one as renewal. The Patanjali’s Yoga model presents nano analyses of human psyche, which certainly assures formation of seven habits and much beyond that.

Table 1: Instruments of the Patanjali’s eight-fold Yoga

Fold	Title	Brief details
1	Yama (Abstinence)	Non-injury, non-falsehood, no stealing, non-indulgence, non-possession. Awareness of the patterns of modes of one’s habits. Cultured individual (See Sutra II-30).
2	Niyama (Observance)	Purity, contentment, simplicity, aspiration. Awareness of the patterns of modes of   one’s habit (See Sutra II-32).
3	Asana (Postures)	Awareness of tension and relaxation in bodily postures and carriage.
4	Pranayama (Breath control)	Awareness of in breathing and out-breathing.
5	Pratyahar (Abstraction)	Sensorial digression and perception inferences. Senses’ Reeducation.
6	Dharana (Awareness)	The drifts of thoughts and mind’s action in defining its own range of observations. Reeducation of mind. A state of physical awareness (psychological, physical perception: mental perception).
7	Dhyan (Attention)	Mind distraction and inattention. Extensive awareness.
8	Samadhi (Communion)	When an object is alone seen, presence of an observer is completely negated.

It is quite interesting to note that the first four Yoga instruments take care of the outer world, whereas, the next four of the inner world. Further “Pratyahar” the fifth instrument works as a bridge connecting the first four Yoga instruments to the remaining three. The whole exercise of eight instruments of Yoga is aimed at non-conditioning of mind, facilitating the man to attain his/her ultimate goal (mission) of life and occupation. In other words, mind in such a state needs not any control. Can we think/realize/visualize such a mind control that needs no control?

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