How to control the mind

Questioner: How can we control the mind?

Dadashri: The mind can never be controlled. The mind is completely physical, just like a machine. A person may think he has succeeded in gaining control over his mind, but it is only due to an effect of his previous karmic account. Only if a person has previously made the bhaav (intent) to do so, will the effect manifest in this life. Only previously made arrangements will bear fruits in this life. Otherwise, it is not possible to bring the mind under control. The mind cannot be tied down with anything. Just as you need a vessel to contain and confine water, you need Gnan to confine the mind. The mind will only yield to a Gnani Purush. It is not to be fractured; it has to be dissolved. The mind is a 'boat' in the 'ocean of life'; you can only cross the ocean of life and reach a shore in this boat. The whole world is swimming in the ocean of life. They swim a little but they sink, again they swim and sink and come up also and that is why they get tired. Everyone has the desire to reach the shore in a boat, but because they do not have the right understanding, they try to destroy this boat of the mind. We need the mind; the mind is gneya (that to be known) and you are gnata-drashta (the knower and the seer) of it. The mind is a film; what will you watch if there is no film? The mind is a film but because you do not know this, you become engrossed with it and say, "I have good thoughts." And you do not like it when you have bad thoughts. Good thoughts sow seeds of attachment (raag)and bad thoughts sow seeds of abhorrence (dwesh). This is how the worldly life perpetuates. But when you meet a Gnani Purush and he bestows upon you the divine vision (divyachakshu) which will give you awareness of the Self, then you will begin to recognize the tubers of the mind and they will dissolve as you continue to see them.

Questioner: I have no interest left in the worldly life. I do not like it anywhere, what should I do?

Dadashri: When a person has a fever for several days, he does not feel like eating anything. He will even give it to you in writing, "I do not like eating anything", but is he going to feel this way forever? No! He will tear his note and say he was sick at the time he wrote it, but now he is fine. The mind changes every moment. It will become interested again. Under certain conditions, people feel they do not like the worldly life; certain conditions make them feel this way, but those conditions change.