MIND-IT IS YOUR BUSINESS

Mind is the seat of internal perception.Mind is an object of knowledge. Just as you perceive an external object, similarly, you can observe your own mind.The mind is called “ internal instrument”. We have external instruments of cognition or perception: 

the eyes,the ears, the nose,the organ of taste,the organ of touch.

Mind is the seat of internal perception.you can watch within to see if you like something or not.you can perceive your likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows.And just as external perception is a criterion of existence, similarly this internal perception is also a criterion of existence.Just as a ball or a bat is real to you,so,also,your likes and dislikes,hopes and fears,your love and hatred, your joys and sorrows are real to you.

 Mind is only an appearance. It does not have any substance. It is like a crowd or traffic. Crowd is nothing but a group of people. Similarly traffic is nothing but group of vehicles. Without group of people or group of vehicle there is no crowd or traffic respectively. In the same way mind is nothing but flow of thoughts. 
 Primary functions of the mind :

    - cognition (the process of obtaining knowledge through thoughts, experience and the senses).

    - emotion/feeling

    - volition(power of choosing freely & making one’s own decision)/willing.
There are other functions of the mind such as memory, imagination, love, hatred, hope, fear.

         Mind receives the light of consciousness and because of that, seems to have the power of feeling. Actually, it is  the self that feels through the mind.What we generally call “subconscious mind” is below the ego-consciousness.What we call “conscious mind” is within the range of the ego-consciousness.There is "super conscious” state which is beyond the range of ego-consciousness.“if you loose a little money , or a bit of time for the sake of another person, you regret it; but how much mental energy you are wasting every moment simply because you have not the power to fasten the mind to the particular object to which you want it to be fastened or because you can not detach the mind from what you want to detach it.You are losing energy constantly because of this.”

        Sunlight may appear to us through different mediums, and the manifestation of the light depends upon the nature of the medium.Similarly in one’s spiritual life, there is no development of the self-luminous, pure, immortal, ever free spirit.There is only mental development that reveals to the seeker a greater or lesser degree of the spiritual light.

       The greatest obstacles to the mind’s development are the impurities of the mind.These impurities do not actually inhere in the mind, but they adhere to the mind.No sin actually forms an intrinsic part of the mind.Just as dust may adhere to a crystal,similarly,mind has impurities or sins adhering to it.
        Patanjali says that there are 5 kinds of impurities:

         - ignorance

         - egoism(identification of the real self with the not-self)

         - attachment

         - aversion  &

         - infatuation (intense unreasonable passion).
From our common experiences we can see that the impurities that dwell in the human mind mostly are the gross emotions, generally called passion. Lust, greed, anger, jealousy, hatred:these are grossest impurities.They upset the mind at once.They distort our judgement,our vision is blurred.For the ailment of impurities in the mind the repeation of the sacred name or meditation has been found to be the best remedy.Reason has vision but can not act; emotion can act but has no vision. If reason rides on the shoulders of emotion, they can get along very well.
 Mind is the tool and if you use it effectively, you will be effective. Hence Mind it! It is your business.