17 - Mind: Our Friend or Our Enemy? | Swami Tattwamayananda - a podcast by Vedanta Society, San Francisco

Chapter 2 Verses 60 – 63. The lecture was given by Swami Tattwamayananda on June 14, 2019.
- The mind: our master or our slave?
- Why does the mind revolt?
- When does our mind become our friend?
- Can we program our mind?
- Why we cannot program our mind.
- We cannot disown our accumulated impressions and samskaras.
- The problem of fragmentation of the mind.
- The pull of the sense-objects, the senses, the visual and the audio objects, the internet, etc.
- If the mind is dragged away from its ideal, it won't stop till it reaches rock-bottom.
- The analogy from Sri Shankaracharya's 'Viveka-chudamani'.
- The analogy of the ball falling down the ladder - The attraction of the senses. - ('Viveka-chudamani', an introductory text on Advaita Vedanta - verse: 326).
- The enslavement of the mind when dragged by unrestrained senses.
- A warning: we should never try to restrain the senses without first evolving a counter-focus.
- The mind compared to a drunken monkey, possessed by a ghost and bitten by a scorpion.
- 'Controlling the mind' does not mean suppression, it actually means sublimation.
- Keeping the senses engaged in creative work.
- Need for a higher ideal in life and going beyond the sensory system.
- Patanjali's concept of 'Parinama-dukha'.
- (Ref: साधन-पादः ॥ परिणामतापसंस्कारदुःखैर्गुणवृत्तिविरोधा च्च दुःखमेव सर्वं विवेकिनः ॥ २.१५॥ )
- The danger of keeping the mind in a vacuum, without a higher ideal, without a good job.
- Giving a promotion to the mind by feeding it with good food in the form of spiritual ideas.
- The importance of a healthy mind and disciplined senses: directing it into creative channels.
- Psychology of the five 'kleshas' from Patanjali's Yoga-sutras
- (साधन-पादः ॥ "अविद्यास्मितारागद्वेषाभिनिवेशाः क्लेशाः" ॥ २.३॥ ).
- Kunti's prayer to Lord Sri Krishna: "Please give me more trouble so that I will always remember you and will never forget you." (Ref: the ancient Sanskrit epic, 'Mahabharata' ).
- The imagery of the journey on a chariot from the Kathopanishad.

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