SATSANG OF SWAMI AMAR JYOTI
© 2005 TRUTH CONSCIOUSNESS

WITH THE WINGS OF COMPASSION AND WISDOM
YOU FLY TO ENLIGHTENMENT.

O START ANY ENDEAVOR, even to be one-pointed, we have to begin with the mind. The same instrument that has created the things you do not want is what is needed to focus on what you do want. That means we have to make mind a fit instrument. We cannot escape it. We have to make it a perfect vessel—pure, still and peaceful. So that leads to a second point: what are the pitfalls or obstacles of the mind? There are many, but in short there are only one or two things that prevent the mind from being a fit instrument.

      It sounds intellectual but the mind actually likes processes, methods and systems. It wants to have some kind of formulas to deal with that are tangible to its own domain or nature: thoughts. If you tell the mind things haphazardly or thoughtlessly, it will not like it. The mind’s obstacles and pitfalls—we could enumerate many—according to Raja Yoga come to one word: tension. Tension is an English term but it is near about in meaning to the Sanskrit word, vikshepa. That means all excitement, all agitation, drives, projects, motivations, and so on, are just tension in varying degrees. Whether they are good or bad is not the point; they are tension nevertheless.