SELF MASTERY - OBSTACLES TO IT = MIND and YOGA

SELF MASTERY 

Mind and YOGA

Yoga – teaches the best of living skills to us and enables us to live our life joyfully, without suffering the events that happen in life. 

The simplest definition of Yoga is - joining YOU with YOUR SELF.

Most of the time - your mind is wandering FAR AWAY from you.  It is unwilling to stay closer to you and within you.

It is just - not under your control. You are powerless to stop the stream of thoughts that your mind constantly and continuously manufactures within you.

Lord Krishna says - the mind that is in your control - is your Best Friend.

The mind that controls you - is your Worst Enemy.

Only when you actually become conscious of this – you will begin to try to control your thoughts. If you persist in this effort, slowly the mind comes within your control. 

But, at each step - it rebels and tries to divert your attention and take control of you - by producing thoughts which in the past, lead you astray and led you under its control.

It is its pastime; it is a past master in spinning such thoughts, which in turn, take control of you.

What matters to you and to all of us is – Have we become aware of this? And, are we staying in that awareness constantly? 

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras teach us a lot of the techniques on how to achieve this mastery over our mind and live our life well as masters of our own self.

At the same time - Patanjali draws our attention to certain factors which act as obstacles in the process of Self Mastery.

                                           

Some of them are - (i) Disease of Body (ii) Disease of mind (iii) physical laziness (iv) mental laziness (v) slavery to sense pleasures (vi) lack of focus on the goal of life (vii) Sorrow (viii) Irregular breathing and so on.

Are they no obvious? Any uninitiated person into Yoga also can recognize them as enemies of self control. They are the weapons with which the mind enslaves us easily.

The process of self Mastery is both easy and difficult.

It can be achieved within a short time. Or it can take several years.

It can stay permanently within us – or it can relapse back into slavery to the mind.

There is nothing like self mastery – we understand this when we are masters.

We are constantly in tension, sorrow and ignorance – when the mind takes control of us. But – mind does provide an occasional source of pleasure – just to make us its slave!

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