Above our desires, lie our senses, above our senses lie us. This code of raja yoga holds infinite knowledge.
The randomness and wildness of thoughts is sometimes overwhelming. You have no control as the mind wants to rush in every direction. It happened to me in practice today morning, as it does a lot of times. To tame the mind, I think even trying to do is futile. You never try too hard.
Bringing yourself back to stillness, by focusing on the breath, the sensation of the breath, the sound of the breath, is a great guide and one should keep doing it whenever one realizes that the mind wandered off. But there are times the mind is just rushing, in such times don’t try too hard. Don’t resist, don’t struggle, don’t fight. Let things be. Try to observe the mind, observe the thoughts, and spend time on this process. You see a change in your attitude to the subject of thoughts. If you are thinking of something that hurts you, worries you or brings you pain, the pain alleviates. Maybe not fully but you develop a respect for the pain. You develop a respect for the painful thoughts and your worries. Because they make the mind stronger. Because they make you stronger, because they make you realize the importance of not worrying, and the importance of good times or a state of happiness. Thank your worries, thank your troubles, thank the people or circumstances that worry you. Thank people for being rude, or behaving badly or saying or doing something that hurt you, because they are atleast not pretending to you. One showing his bad side is him showing his true side, how they actually feel or think. That’s a blessing for you. You might worry or feel pain from the actions but observing this pain, these worrisome thoughts, makes you realize that you are not your thoughts, you certainly are not a slave to your thoughts, you are above your thoughts and you choose how you want to react to them.
Everything needs time, give your thoughts time as well. And stillness will automatically arrive. Ease and relaxation will automatically envelop the body. But you got to give it time. And thanking the “wrong” behavior of others will help you appreciate the positives that come with every negative, the opportunities that lie in every challenge, and then you end up thanking the “wrongs” more.
You are above your body and your mind, but the body and the mind are the closest friends we have. They are born with us and they die with us, (although some school of thoughts believe we all keep living, just the body and mind die) , hence we need to take care of them, exercise them, nourish them, relax them , give them love, give them stress so that they become stronger. That is our duty, we owe it to them.
Most thoughts that occupy the mind are about other humans. The moment we start to try to bring our awareness to sounds of nature, elements of nature, animal or bird sounds, the awareness automatically relaxes and eases. The mind relaxes. It wanders off to again eventually worry about humans, other humans that are in our circle. Too many humans maybe or maybe we have encircled ourselves too much in a world obsessed with itself. A species that worries only about itself and is bothered only about itself. Maybe there are actually too many humans on this planet or maybe we just need to spend more time and surround ourselves more with nature , other species, flora fauna.