Early-morning Walk, Mind - your Best friend or Worst enemy?

 Few days ago, It was 7:00 AM in the morning and the weather from the window looked terrible. There is hardly any sign of sun and I could see few drops of rain falling and a fog collected on the windows.Do I need to go for a walk in this cold,

chilly, windy day and what if I get caughtup in the rain, somewhere on the road. Just, take it easy, relax for some more time, get some extra sleep and then go to work,cancel your plans of morning walk for today - announced my mind. Thanks for

your kindness and advice but, going for the walk is the most important part of my day. Morning walk freshens my mind, I love the fresh air, birds chirping and the light of morning sound. Most importantly, it gives me a time to introspect,

plan my day and on a practical level, this is the only time of the day, I am out there in the open air, giving my mind and body bit of exercise. Otherwise, I work all day sitting in front of Computer, in a closed office environment. So, come

what may, I am going out for my daily walk even if that means, carrying an umbrella - and off I went. Sure enough, I was amply rewarded for my hard work, this is what I found. A beautiful rainbow.

Its interesting that in Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna talks about the importance of controlling the mind.

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 6.6

bandhur ātmātmanas tasya

yenātmaivātmanā jitah

anātmanas tu śatrutve

vartetātmaiva śatru-vat

Translation & Purport by Srila Prabhupad

“For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy”.

The purpose of practicing eightfold yoga is to control the mind in order to make it a friend in discharging the human mission. Unless the mind is controlled, the practice of yoga (for show) is simply a waste of time. One who cannot

control his mind lives always with the greatest enemy, and thus his life and its mission are spoiled. The constitutional position of the living entity is to carry out the order of the superior. As long as one's mind remains an unconquered

enemy, one has to serve the dictations of lust, anger, avarice, illusion, etc. But when the mind is conquered, one voluntarily agrees to abide by the dictation of the Personality of Godhead, who is situated within the heart of everyone as Paramātmā. Real yoga practice entails meeting the Paramātmā within the heart and then following His dictation. For one who takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness directly, perfect surrender to the dictation of the Lord follows automatically.

So, this is the story of our life every moment. You want to do something and your mind immediately gives you different suggestions. So, what you get is what you put into it.Just like GIGO - Garbage in, garbage out in the field of computer

science or information and communications technology refers to the fact that computers, since they operate by logical processes, will unquestioningly process unintended, even nonsensical, input data ("garbage in") and produce undesired,

often nonsensical, output ("garbage out"). Similarly, our mind is also like a computer. It will take the inputs, impressions that we give to it and when the time comes, it will give out whatever we have fed it with.

Once I heard, a Lecture where the speaker explained wonderfully about the mind and how it makes or breaks a person. It was a simple incident but, left profound impression on my mind. Once, two friends from a small town planned to go to the nearby City to get an important job done. They need to catch a train early in the morning around 5:30AM, go and meet an higher official to talk about their retirement benefits and pension etc. The plan was to meet at the train station  and the second friend never turned up, so the first friend went alone to the city, got his job done and came back in the evening. Then, he met his friend who  failed to turn up at the train station and the reply was like this. I am sorry, I could not make it.I actually wanted to come but, two street away someone told me that, there is a stray, mad dog that had bitten number of people, so it’s dangerous to travel alone. And, also I don’t have small change, had a 100 rupee note. And, who knows, what if the Staff at the Ticket counter does not have the change. I loose the rest of the money. And, also it was rainy, cold. What if I slip and break my leg or something...And, so on. Apparently, the person who had so many excuses never got his pension paperwork done and even left his body without getting that work done in his lifetime. One good stick is enough to scare a stray dog, 100 rupees is nothing compared to the benefits that are going to come and as Bhagavathm explains, “padam padam yad vipadam na tesam”, in this material world, in every step there is danger. That means, there is an element of risk in everything that you do but, that should not stop one from doing right things. Because, even if you are not doing anything and sleeping in your house, things happen.

Let me quote the above verse completely, because it is so wonderful..

“Srimad Bhagavatam 10.14.58

samasrita ye pada-pallava-plavam

mahat-padam punya-yaso murareh

bhavambudhir vatsa-padam param padam

padam padam yad vipadam na tesham

TRANSLATION by Srila Prabhupad : For those who have accepted the boat of the lotus feet of the Lord, who is the shelter of the cosmic manifestation and is famous as Murari, the enemy of the Mura demon, the ocean of the material world is like the water contained in a calf's hoof-print. Their goal is param padam, Vaikuntha, the place where there are no material miseries, not the place where there is danger at every step”.

Ok, I actually started off writing this by talking about Benefits of going for a morning walk but, was inspired to write about mind control. To sum up, please take care of following things –   

Weakness of Heart – Lord Krishna called this Hridaya Daurbalyam. Arjuna, who was the greatest Warrior  (was of course put into illusion by Krishna, so that Bhagavad Gita can be spoken) became completely weak, his body was shivering, his Gandiva Bow slipped from his hand and refused to fight.So, when we give chance for these things like doubt, indecision, loss of  faith in ourselves, loosing sight of our goals,  

Resistance to change – The first thing a man does is to resist and try to stop the change from happening.We want to control so many things in life.Stop old age, control temperature by Air Con or Heater so on. But, change is inevitable, part of life and that’s why so many organisations these days are coming up with Change management, how to cope up with change.

Bad Habits – Which are due to wrong association and company. As someone said “ A man is known by the company he keeps”. It’s important to have the right company and take up a right path in life. If one is trying to be a millionaire, he cannot go around with beggars and expect to become one. Of course, that does not mean that a beggar cannot become a millionaire and even though he is  a beggar, his role models  should be that of millionaires. Of course, ultimately man proposes and God disposes, but that desire and personal endeavour should be there. Rabbits don’t line up tigers mouth. It has to go out and hunt for them.