Suppose a part of a country is afflicted by insurgency. To gain control, that country needs to not just crush the insurgents but to also win over the people there so that they help fight the insurgents.

During the routine course of life, we all encounter some force within us that works against us. Whenever we do something important, it sidetracks us or even sabotages us. Gita wisdom identifies this inner distractor to be the mind.

To achieve anything worthwhile, we need to fight the mind, curbing its short-term impulses and reactionary tendencies. Still, the is the vital interface between the soul and the body. So, we can’t just do away with it.

Actually, our fight is not against the mind – it is against the malevolent forces that have occupied the mind and are making it work against our best interests. We need to determinedly purge those immoral, anti-devotional, self-defeating forces.

Simultaneously, we need to find those of our mental inclinations that are usable in our spiritual growth, in our service to Krishna. The Gita explains that we all have our innate nature, our svabhava, and we can’t repress it – we need to use it for serving Krishna and making constructive contributions. When we channel our nature positively and are able to do something worthwhile, even wonderful, our mind gets a taste for such activities and thus gets a taste for Krishna. Once the mind gets it that the anti-devotional forces within it are going to deprive it of this taste, it joins us in fighting against those forces instead of becoming an accomplice for those forces.

When the mind thus becomes our friend (06.06) by our inner connection with Krishna (06.07), we can face life’s dualities with equanimity and persevere in our higher purposes.

To know more about this verse, please click on the image
Explanation of article:

Podcast:


Download by “right-click and save”