Mind: The Deadliest Terrorist
– by Shrila Bhakti Swarup Tirtha Maharaj
The mind is always unsteady or of flickering nature and is at times very turbulent. It can act both as an enemy and a friend. When the mind is misled by the illusory energy of the Lord, it becomes entangled in the network of material activities and always remains agitated. Thus, it becomes the deadliest terrorist, explains Shrila B S Tirtha Maharaj.
Brooding over past failures, fretting on current affairs and agonising about unpredictable future events, we are wasting our precious time – indeed our lives. This weakens our potential. It robs us of our dynamic force. We must understand that a mind properly nurtured behaves like a slave.
But when neglected without careful cultivation, the mind controls the actual self like a tyrannical master. Endowed with the faculty of logic, only human beings can subjugate, train and engage the mind in spiritual activity to attain the real purpose of life.
Vedic literature describes the mind as one of the four components that constitutes the internal subtle body of all living beings (mano buddhir ahankaras chittam iti antaratmakam). The other three are: intelligence, false ego and contaminated consciousness.
Thus, the mind is a product of the material energy of God and it is not spiritual. Thus, it has a natural tendency to become attracted to material objects of enjoyments. It always hankers after material pleasures.
Since the mind of a conditioned soul is influenced by the material nature around him, it triggers the functions of the material modes, namely sattva (illumination), rajah (activity) and tamah (inertia). Thus, a person’s mode of activities depends upon the particular mode of material nature his mind is enveloped with.
We generally come across people who have faith in reincarnation and they have an impression that after death, a human being will be born as a human again. This is a wrong notion. The Bhagavad Gita informs us that whatever state of mind one has at the time of death, he or she will be awarded the next body based on that.
Therefore, the mind is the root cause of the living being’s attaining a particular type of physical body. In other words, our physical body consisting of hands, legs, eyes, ears and so on, is a product of our mind. If, for any reason, an intense desire to become the best swimmer persists in the mind of an unsuccessful Olympian at the time of death, taking into consideration all other actions in his life, if he does not qualify for human birth, he will be awarded the gross body of an aquatic creature like a fish or a shark.
This is done under the supervision of Paramatma, the super soul, (karmana daiva netrena jantoh dehopapattaye), as stated in various sections of revealed scriptures. If he is fond of sweets, he may get a red ant’s body or if he is fond of flying, he may get a bird’s body.
Although a living entity gets newer and newer physical bodies after death, the same mind continues to exist and accompany him through all these innumerable bodies. Thus, transmigration of the soul is caused by the mind.
Therefore, the mind is the sole reason for one’s continued material existence (manah eva manushyendra bhootanam bhava bhavanam). Like a huge warehouse, the mind registers all images and impressions transmitted by the sense organs of various physical bodies that a living being acquires life after life.
In this context, the Gita says, ‘Vayur gandhaniva ashayat’- just as the air carries aromas of different places it passes through, the mind of living beings carries different conceptions of life from one body to another.
Sometimes, the impressions registered in the mind appear either in dreams or in thoughts. This explains why we see in dreams what we never hear of or see in our waking life. For example, in his present life, one may have never learnt swimming, yet, while dreaming one may see himself effortlessly swimming across a raging river.
This can also be cited as a reason for many child prodigies we often come across in various spheres like sports, music, dance, poetry, mathematics and computers. Some display amazing skills at a very early age of seven years or so. The Wright Brothers and Alexander Graham Bell never went to any aviation, aeronautic or telecommunication engineering college. These colleges came into being after their inventions of the aircraft and the telephone respectively.
One performs actions according to one’s mental disposition. Therefore, in the Vedic system, human society was divided into classes according to the inherited quality and occupational duty (guna karma vibhagashah), to facilitate systematic and gradual spiritual progress because the ultimate object of Varna-ashrama system is to please the Supreme Lord Shri Vishnu.
The basic characteristic of the mind is sankalpa vikalpa, that is, acceptance and rejection. This arises from the desire for sense enjoyment. The mind accepts what is favourable and rejects what is unfavourable in consideration of sense gratification. Even those who excel in theoretical understanding of varied philosophical concepts are also helplessly engaged in the business of accepting and rejecting.
In fact, this tendency starts becoming exhibited from childhood. Sometimes, a child throws tantrums much to the embarrassment of an accompanying parent when he/she insists on having a particular chocolate or a toy in a shop that displays innumerable varieties.
That means the child has accepted one and rejected the rest. Similarly, it is commonplace that an aesthetic young lady ignoring a heap of saris placed before her by a shopkeeper, requests that a particular piece with unique design stacked in a corner of a shelf top be shown to her for her consideration; and ultimately she buys it. This is also a case of accepting one and rejecting all others.
In this way, all of us exhibit our preferences based on our individual penchant for all objects, places and persons. This happens because if once the mind has experienced a particular type of pleasure, it becomes permanently etched and demands to enjoy it again and again, in life after life.
This is the reason we all find it difficult to give up even the current addictions like tea, coffee or alcohol in this life leave alone innumerable lifetimes.
Enjoyment or suffering is in reality experienced by the mind although sensual contact of the external object may be the cause.