Dhayana - Controlling the Mind
Human mind has uncommonly been a word of great outfit to the philosophers, thinkers, and masters of yoga. Guided by the maxim " healthy mind in a healthy body ", we retain tried to view in the earlier chapters how yoga practices involving restriction of muscles and excitement care use to fashion the mind healthy and peacefu1. In the present-day chapter we shall buzz into those yoga techniques which are useful in tackling the mind in a direct means. A questions that we weakness answer at the outset would be why should the mind be made silent at all? An answer to this debate is begin in the Amritabindupanishad, locale in it is uttered that, " the mind has two parts: one impure, the other pure. The impurities of the mind are untrue by crave and flare-up. Mind itself is therefore the generate of bondage and release; it binds the discrete when it is overtaken by wanting for enjoyment, it makes for mukti when it becomes peaceful and silent ". We shall primogenial try to take meaning here the humor of mind according to yoga, before proceeding to look at how it is make-believe silent.
In that explained by the great Shankaracharya ( VivekaChudamani ), the mind ( which is declared in Sanskrit whereas antahkarana ) gets four discrepant names according to its functions: it is called manas for the exercise of resolving and doubting; buddhi, when it comes to a the nod or reasoning about form; it derives the prenomen asmita from the detail of consciousness of its own existence; and lastly, it comes to be declared because chita by the incident of remembering previous participation. It is customary to compare the mind to a river. Just thanks to a river is naught but a huge mass of innumerable drops of bathe, mind is a measureless collection of thoughts and traces of foregone experience. Sodden is practical to flow always to a lower steady; inasmuch as, overmuch the mind, which always gets fascinated towards one or other device of enjoyment.
Traditionally it is believed by all the branches of Indian philosophy ( exclude maybe the solitary case history of the Charvaka train of cerebration ) that the mind of every secluded is, at allotment point, full of traces of exposure gathered in all the elapsed lives concluded which one has passed. According to this conclusion, one ' s mind at the same moment of birth, may be looked upon whereas a big river of samskaras gathered over prevalent ended lives. Various samskaras out of that monstrous collection are supposed to be wiped out due to enjoyment of their fruits in the started birth, but uncounted spare are besides being continually wider throughout the being life, due to the multifarious acts one does from birth till mortality. This is declared because the charter of karma, which states that the diverse events one comes across in the coeval life are the fruits of what one had done in past lives, and secondly, that the mind of an select contains, at birth, the integral collection of recent samskaras. It may be pointed out that science seems to disbelieve both these statements.
Whether the mind is full of traces of elapsed understanding at birth or not, it is straight that the mind of most of us is exceptionally engaged in enterprise that is the outcome of desire to be something or to earn something. For explained in the Mahopanishad, " mind is always unstable, and it is halfway impossible to get rid of the instability of the mind, being it is a level considering basic to the mind seeing is heat to fire. When the mind becomes devoid of this instability, it attains moksha. " Our mind may be compared to a horse that is free to spring wherever it likes. Equaling an common horse, the mind of an odd always runs from one entity of enjoyment to extra. We boast the mind to be continuously engaged in some old softie of understanding. Whenever it is not engaged in module miracle absolutely happening. it either remembers some past episode or contemplates some future act. It is at correct singular movements that the mind may be originate to be still. We asset a simple lucid description of the mental action of an respective in the Kathopanishad. It is said that, " the body is like a chariot of which intellect ( buddhi ) is the charioteer. Mind works like the reins; the senses are the horses, the objects of experience being their field of operation. The individual endowed with mind and senses is the enjoyer of all that happens. The senses act like bad horses out of control of the charioteer when the mind is not steady. When right knowledge is attained by steadying the mind, the senses act like good controlled horses. Such an individual reaches the other shore of samsara, that is the highest state. "
Yoga philosophy recognizes five factors as being basic to the mental activity of an individual. These are called the five kleshas, because ' they are the root cause of human misery and sorrow. They are named respectively avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha, and abhinivesha. Avidya means false knowledge or ignorance of one ' s own nature in relation to the objects of experience. Various schools of Indian philosophy are observed to have different views regarding what avidya means, but they all agree that it is a fundamental fact underlying human behavior. Asmita means the ego feeling. According to the yoga view, the soul is, in fact, completely different from the body. But due to avidya, it starts taking the body to be its own, or rather, it gets identified with the body, and thus gets affected with pleasure and pain. Asmita is thus an immediate consequence of avidya. The next three kleshas are also looked upon as consequences of avidya ( e. g. see Yoga Sutra ). Raga means liking for pleasurable experience, that is, the desire for enjoyment. Dvesha is the opposite of this, namely, aversion for pain. The last, klesha, indicates the desire to live, i. e. the fear of death.
Yoga philosophy thus tries to derive all human behavior from these five innate and universal tendencies. It is believed that these five basic tendencies are present in the mind of an individual right from the moment of birth. They are the motivating agents which guide the behavior of an individual in various situations. These five innate tendencies are looked upon as impurities of the mind. Their presence in the mind makes for unsteadiness and instability. The mind can, therefore, become steady and peaceful only when these impurities are completely washed away. There are two ways of making the mind clear of impurities, namely, Pranayama and Dhyana.
Dhayana - Controlling the Mind...
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