Dear devotees
There is a question that a lot of people ask,
“When I try to meditate, why is my mind so difficult to control?”
And this same question was asked by Arjun (the warrior disciple of Krishna) in the Gita to Shree Krishna (the Supreme Divine personality).
चञ्चलं हि मन: कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम् |
तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम् ||Hañchalaṁ hi manaḥ kṛiṣhṇa pramāthi balavad dṛiḍham.
Tasyāhaṁ nigrahaṁ manye vāyor iva su-duṣhkaram.- Gita 6.34
(The mind is restless, turbulent, strong, and difficult to control like the wind,)
Arjun says, “O Krishna, You keep telling me to put my mind in You, meditate on You. But this mind is chanchal (fickle, restless). It is so active. It would be easier to control the wind than to control one’s mind, and it is strong. You try to stop it, it won’t stop. So what to do?”
Shree Krishna said,
असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् |
Asanshayam mahābāho mano durnigrahaṁ chalam.- Gita 6.35
“Yes, Arjun, without a doubt, the mind is very difficult to control.”
However,
अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ||
Abhyāsen tu Kaunteya vairāgyeṇa cha gṛihyate.
- Gita 6.35
“With practice, you can overcome the fickleness of the mind. You can learn to control your mind.”
So first of all, let us briefly understand why the mind is so fickle. There is a science behind it, and it is very straightforward.
यं यं वापि स्मरन्भावं त्यजत्यन्ते कलेवरम् ।
Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajatyante kalevaram.- Gita 8.6
य: प्रयाति स मद्भावं याति नास्त्यत्र संशय: ||
Yaḥ prayāti sa mad-bhāvaṁ yāti nāstyatra sanśhayaḥ.- Gita 8.5
This is also from Gita. Shree Krishna is telling a principle that whatever you think about a lot, your mind gets attached to that thing, and it starts naturally thinking about it.
All on its own; that is where the mind gravitates. In this context, He is referring to the moment of death: that whatever you are attached to, that is what you will remember at the time you are leaving your body, and accordingly that is what you will attain. That is why we always attain the world, because we are always attached to the world. We have never been attached to Shree Krishna.
The same principle can be applied here to meditation. Our mind is drawn away from Shree Krishna and towards the people and things of this world. Why? Because that is where we are attached. It is like a gravitational pull.
The greater the attachment, the stronger the pull. And since our attachment in Shree Krishna is currently weak, therefore when we try to meditate, instead of thinking of Him, our mind goes naturally to the world. The people of the world pop into our mind. The things of the world pop into our mind - our desires, our fears; all these things start rattling around inside our mind. It is quite natural. Wherever we are attached, that is what the mind is going to naturally think about. In that case, meditation is going against the flow of the mind. When we try to stop the mind...
“Let me think of nothing. Let me just have a clear mind, a peaceful mind.”
That is against the flow of the mind. Because the natural flow of the mind is, wherever we are attached, the mind wants to keep thinking of those things. That is one reason why meditation is so difficult.
But the meditation of the Gita is not to think of nothing. And the meditation taught by Jagadguru Shree Kripalu Ji Maharaj is not to think of nothing, or to simply calm the mind, or to think of a light, or any number of things that have become popular nowadays. No, the meditation of Gita is,
मय्यर्पितमनोबुद्धि…
Mayyarpita-mano-buddhi…
Shree Krishna says, “Arjun, put your mind in Me, not just in any random thing you are trying to meditate on; meditate on Me.”
So this is the first thing. The first deficiency in our meditation is that we try to meditate on other things other than God. Meditating on God is the easiest. Why? Because the mind wants happiness. It is our nature. It is everybody’s nature. And it is, in fact, the reason we get attached to people and things of this world. We are looking for happiness. And wherever we believe our desire for happiness could be fulfilled, we start repeatedly thinking,
“Oh, I saw a person! Oh, they are very beautiful, very sweet! If they become my friend, I’ll be so happy!”
They are not even your friend yet. You haven’t gotten any happiness from them, but you keep thinking,
“If they become my friend, I’ll be so happy! I’ll get so much happiness!”
All of a sudden, now the mind is thinking about that person. Nowadays people call it an infatuation; we get infatuated with somebody. It is natural. Our mind made a decision,
“There is happiness in this person!”
So then we start thinking about them. If we hadn’t made that decision, we wouldn’t have started thinking about them, but because we started that process, now we get attached to them. Then if you were to sit down and try to meditate, the mind is going to go right to that person. This is how the mind works. So it is very natural that when we try to meditate, the mind continues on with its normal activities. And it is going to race off towards the objects and the people of our attachments.
However, if we take the same principle of the mind to get attached, and to seek happiness, and we just divert that towards Shree Krishna. It’s a fact that Krishna is the very form of Divine bliss. He is sat-chit-anand (eternal existence, consciousness, and bliss). So if we were to dwell upon that, just like we saw a person. We don’t even know anything about them, we met them today. You remember, maybe it doesn’t happen to you nowadays. You are married, or you are beyond those days, but when you were in high school, you would see someone and automatically think,
“If this person loves me, I’ll be so happy!”
And in one day, you become infatuated with that person. You don’t know them, you haven’t talked to them, but you are thinking about them constantly. So why not do the same thing for Shree Krishna?
All the Saints and scriptures are telling us,
“He is your true Divine friend, He is your true Divine beloved, He is the perfect friend, perfect companion, and He can give you perfect love, unlike anyone in this world.”
That is an unfair expectation from anyone in this world, but it is a realistic expectation from God. Shree Krishna has perfect Divine love, and He can give it to us. So if we really believe that, if we really thought of that,
“Oh! Krishna is mine! In every life I change all my relations. When I leave this body, all the relations are cut, and I form new relations every life. But my relationship with Krishna is eternal, and He lives right in here (in our heart). There is no separation between Him and me! He resides inside my soul!”
If we dwell upon all of these points, all of a sudden the mind will get attracted to Shree Krishna.
“He is mine! He has perfect happiness and perfect love!”
If we really deeply reflect upon these points, our mind will start to get attached to Him. This is the secret of meditation. If you understand this philosophy of our relationship with Shree Krishna, and we start attaching our mind to Him, to the extent our mind is attached to Him, to that extent our meditation will become easy. There is a point we cross where we become more than 50% attached to Him. It’s a changing balance. If we are 10% attached to Shree Krishna, it means we are 90% attached to the world. Then meditation is going to be difficult. You try to meditate on Shree Krishna, and the world pops in your head, because that is where you are attached.
But if you cross that 50% threshold, then you get to 51% in Shree Krishna and only 49% in the world. That pull, that gravitational pull, of your attachments on your mind will be more towards Shree Krishna. So when you try to meditate on Him, all of a sudden it feels easy.
“The world isn’t intruding on my meditation,” because you crossed that threshold, and it gets easier and easier all the way up to God-realization. But the key is we have to meditate on Shree Krishna’s form. Not just meditate on any worldly thing or any number of things that people teach to meditate on nowadays. We have to do roopdhyan .Roopdhyan means picturing the form of Shree Krishna. This is why we have the murti (sacred deity form) in the mandir (temple). To give us an idea, like a jumpstart - this is how you can picture Radha Krishna. Now close your eyes and do it. That’s what the murti is for. Radha (Divine soul Beloved of Krishna) and Krishna are omnipresent. So they are present in the murti, they are also present in your mind.
So when you create their image in your mind, They’re also present in that. So with that kind of feeling that real Radha Krishna right in front of me (then) now you have something beautiful to focus your mind on. That’s another key to meditation. When we try to focus on something vague or abstract, there’s no beauty in that. It doesn’t attract the mind. When we try to focus on something impersonal, like an object, there’s not much attraction to the mind. But when you focus on the beautiful form and personality of Radha Krishna in front of you, They’re alive in front of you. That has a beautiful attraction to the mind. This is an important factor in making meditation easy.
So first of all, we have to do roopdhyan of Radha Krishna. We can also think of Their leelas (Divine pastimes). And we have to bring into this our relationship with Them that we’re eternally related to Them only, not to anyone else. So if you really feel that They are mine only, then you’ll keep thinking about Them, and They are the source of happiness and love. When we feel that my happiness will be fulfilled by Them, then we’ll keep thinking about Them, we’ll get more and more attached to Them, and meditation will become easier and easier.
This type of meditation on Radha Krishna, that we call roopdhyan, has the added benefit of purifying the mind, not just relaxing the mind, but purifying it. No other meditation purifies the mind. Because only if you think of God will the mind be purified. It’s straightforward. God is Divine and Divinely pure. So if you bring God into your mind, your mind will be purified. If you only meditate on worldly things, then the mind can never be purified. When the mind is purifying, then all the good qualities begin to arise, and the negative qualities are suppressed.
So these are some of the benefits of practicing roopdhyan, which is the form of meditation taught here at Radha Madhav Dham, and, of course, by Jagadguru Shree Kripalu Ji Maharaj.
We’ll spend a few minutes doing this roopdhyan now.
The other key to meditation is to do it with kirtan (devotional chanting). If we do it in silence, it’s again making it easier to get bored. We do the kirtan because by chanting God’s names, again, it’s bringing our focus back to Radha Krishna. And the act of the chanting keeps the mind more focused. If we’re sitting without chanting, our mind is more likely to wander. But if we’re chanting the names “Radhe Govind,” then the mind is more likely to stay focused.
So let us spend a few minutes doing some kirtan and roopdhyan.
Bolo Vrindavan Bihari Lal ki Jai!
Glory to the beloved Lord of Vrindavan!
Please note that the transcript has not been proofread.
