Dealing With The Mind

Excerpts from Gurudev’s discourse on the Patanjali Yoga Sutras

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Patanjali has enumerated several methods to deal with the mind.

In one sutra, He suggests: Breaking the natural rhythms of the breath, holding it and sustaining it in different rhythms. Patanjali has not mentioned Sudarshana Kriya directly. But in this sentence, there is a clue. You can trace our practices to that one sutra because we are doing the same thing here. We are not just breathing however we like. We are consciously breathing in a definite rhythm. That is splitting. We are splitting the breath, dividing it and holding it in different rhythms. We are modulating the prana and the breath. This also makes our mind focused.

Suppose, it does not work and you feel it is not complete. Then he suggests,‘vishayavati’. This means that the mind can be stilled through any one object of senses. What happens during eye-gazing? You are looking at somebody for a few minutes. You gaze at that person from the bottom of your heart. At that time, your mind is not running here and there. You sit with your eyes closed. The mind is completely settled. We may sit for a meditation after singing bhajans. The mind has come to a standstill.