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Ravi Chandran

Mind: The best comrade or the worst foe

उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् |
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मन: || 5||

“One must revamp and get transformed by considering the mind as the auxiliary and not degrade oneself. The mind can be one’s best friend and can also be one’s biggest enemy if it is not conditioned through appropriate means”.

बन्धुरात्मात्मनस्तस्य येनात्मैवात्मना जित: |
अनात्मनस्तु शत्रुत्वे वर्ते तात्मैव शत्रुवत् || 6||

“A person who has conquered the mind, for him/her ,the mind would be his best of friends but if the mind is not under the control then the mind will remain the greatest enemy of the person”.

These VERSEs are the cynosures and impactful amongst all VERSES of chapter Six of Bhagavad Gita . Lord Krishna tells the human kind through Arjuna that one needs to make mind the instrument in order to get transformed. Mind can be ones’ best friend and the worst adversary.

Let us further study the mind. Mind is the epicentre of a person’s overall personality. Through one’s demeanour, the characteristic of mind can easily be assessed. A destabilized mind would affect a person’s verbal expressions as well as his subsequent actions. It is the mind that plays impetus for the actions irrespective of the quality of the action.

Any deed performed by a person gets impregnated in mind. For example, I see a person taking out the wallet and counting the notes. My uncontrolled mind reacts and would push me to the extreme to contrive a plan and snatch the wallet or harm the person to get his wallet. My capricious mind would persistently force me to snatch the wallet and run away. If I have become a slave of my mind, I would end up committing a crime by snatching the wallet. This is exactly the mindset of the pickpockets found in buses and trains.

As a result of the coercion of mind, I land up committing a horrendous action and later land up in prison to endure the irresistible misery of isolation and disgrace. My stint in prison was due to the fickle and boisterous mind. Majority of inmates languishing in prisons lament about the condition of mind. They say “I could not control my mind. My mind is responsible for the present predicament of imprisonment”. Who was the enemy who pushed one to the miserable circumstance? The mind. An irrepressible mind becomes one’s enemy and enemies do not offer any pleasant circumstance.

On the other hand, a controlled mind, a mind that is conditioned with knowledge of righteousness would always be a friend and a trusted companion in life. A mind that is under the control of the person would always show him/her the right path to succeed under any circumstance.
Lord Krishna asserts that one who has conditioned and conquered the mind would be able to stay in composure and divine serenity. Conquering the mind infers elimination of even a miniscule of desire arising in mind and staying in complete knowledge about the pattern of mind thereby remaining equanimous at all times.

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