It is the mind that is the real instrument of the soul, you see. On one side it governs the body and the senses; on the other side, it makes use of the brain. Therefore Raja Yoga says, "Start with the mind." It is the source of all action. You start at the source. Regulate the mind. I must here caution you on the use of the word regulation - it is not control. Control implies force; control implies a sort of oppressive, cruel way of something. In regulation it is a fine tuning of the instrument to enable it to perform at its best capacity, the best level of its capacity. So in our Sahaj Marg Yoga we use the word 'regulation' of the mind, not 'control' of the mind.
So Raja Yoga is called precisely Raja Yoga because it deals with that which is at the summit of the human existence, the mind. The king among yogas, they call it, also the yoga of the kings. But what is it that is the king in my existence? As I told you, Lord Krishna thought the charioteer's position important enough for him to personally occupy that in that combat of the great Mahabharata yuddha (battle). Anybody who understands this would automatically fall in line with this idea, you see, that it is the mind which is the problem - it is the mind which is also the redeemer. Because without the mind, I am nowhere. If I am insane, if my mind is spoiled by abuse, by drugs, by alcoholism, what can I do? You see, I am just lying like a vegetable; that is the word that they use in modern hospitals, you see. He is a vegetable, he can do nothing. He cannot think, even his natural processes he has no control over. It is like something gone haywire, you see, like some of these computers.
So the mind, to regulate, how to do it? This famous question is nothing new. Arjuna asked the same question in the Gita, you see. He says, "Brother," he is telling his future Master, the one whom he is going to recognize as the God Almighty. He says, "Krishna, this mind is so fickle, it is like water on the waves, tossed about by the wind. How to use it? How to control it?" Krishna gives one single word - abhyas (practice).
So this is the funny thing - that we have to use the mind itself to regulate the mind, and make it a perfect instrument by working upon itself. Sometimes it appears a little confusing, complicated. How to use that which is incompetent to make it competent by itself? Well, but if you realise that this is how we walk, we walk and make ourselves capable of better walking. Sometimes a man is sick for six months, eight months, his feet, his muscles are almost atrophied and two people have to support him to walk. But the doctor says, "My dear friend, unless you walk, you cannot walk." I mean, it seems to be an absurd statement, "Unless you walk, you cannot walk!" Yes, but it is very true.
So in the human system it is always the use of the instrument itself which perfects that instrument. We don't bring an external agency to help us. So the mind regulates the mind, provided 'I', the inner 'I', who is me, the real Me who is supposed to be everlasting, who sheds this body at death and either goes on in his important journey in the higher realms (or has the misfortune to come back to seek another body here), he has to be regulated.
So, ultimately, in Raja Yoga, we find that there are two, shall we say, regulators. That this 'I', who I thought was me, whom I have been pampering, shaving every day, combing my hair very beautifully, dressing it nicely, I have to come to realise that this 'I' is a false 'I'. It is as if my shirt suddenly starts saying, "Give me some food; after all I am covering you. I have an entity, I have an independence." But we don't ascribe those qualities to the shirt. In fact, in the Gita it says, "Vasamsi firnani yatha bihaya" [As a man discards old clothes for new ones]. A day comes when, like casting off a shirt, we are changing shirts every day, sometimes twice a day, but we have associated ourselves so much with this body that we think we are the body. So, when the time comes or even when the thought comes that this has to be thrown off, like a white shirt or a dirty shirt, we are lost, we are miserable, we are grief-stricken. Therefore comes the fear of death. But the inner voice which is dormant, which is almost silent, what we call conscience, has to be awakened.
"Arise, awake and rest not till the goal is achieved" - Vivekananda was very fond of saying again and again. It is a part of the Vedic tradition. Whom is he addressing? What is he trying to say? "I am awake." Yes, but the Veda says, "My dear friend, you are not awake; your body is awake, your senses are awake." You are like an automaton, the engineered humanoid automaton which can walk, which can do everything, sort of 'live' in the sense that we live.
So we recognize Him who is inside, and we recognize it which is not the brain but a sort of magnetic field which you cannot locate in space, though it is there as proved by the iron filings which are attracted in these famous patterns of magnetic fields. So it is part of our psychological thinking in Sahaj Marg, that the soul creates this field which it calls the mind for its own use, like a magnet creates a magnetic field which is able to pull towards itself, like a spider creates a web which is its own field of operation, its field of existence, its field of assimilating everything.
So the Master who is in me must be given back the right. It is not I any more who can regulate my mind. I have found I cannot do it. Every time I tell a lie I make a resolution that I shall not tell a lie in the future, but at the next opportunity I tell a lie again. The man addicted to the bottle, every time makes a firm resolution, you see, "No more," but the next moment there is a bottle and a glass or a cup on the way, inexorably he is drawn towards that. Some gravity seems to pull him into itself like a black hole in space. What happened to his resolution?
So Yoga says two things. The mind has to be regulated, and he who has to regulate it is not this you, but this You who is inside. Hand it over to Him. Raja Yoga says, "There is a Master inside you. Whom if you but recognize, whom if you but hand over the reins of authority to, you can be at peace, at harmony."
So Yoga says, "Start now. Start with this idea that the mind has to be regulated. Know that the mind has to be used to regulate itself. Know that when it is regulated, it becomes a perfect instrument in your hands. Know that your hands are not his hands but He who is sitting inside you. Hand it over to Him." Then you will find that what you thought was surrender, is really mastery. Now you have become a Master because you have become He who is within you. In some mysterious fashion, when we surrender we become that to which we surrender.
- Excerpted from Principles of Sahaj Marg Vol. 9, pp. 24-36, Shri P. Rajagopalachari
