My Grand Master Sri Yukteswar ji would always say, “Learn to behave.” Three simple words are these, but a vast spectrum of meaning, as we can see. Let us understand.
The world is our extended Self. If I want to get along with others, I must first learn to get along with myself. Now, to get along with myself, I have to know myself – or shall we say, I must know my Self? Most of us are ’strangers’ unto ourselves – how can one get along
with a ’stranger’?
In the scripttttures of my motherland, India, we compare human beings with a chariot with 5 horses. The 5 sense-faculties (seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling and touching) are the 5 steeds, wayward and unruly, running amuck towards the sense-objects. To control them, we have a rein, which is our sensory mind. It is called the lower mind (manas) because its domain is just two-fold, “I like it” and “I don’t like it.” It is pleasure-driven, being sense-enslaved.
The rein is necessary but not enough. There must be an able charioteer to hold fast the reins. He is our higher mind – the reason, the discerning or discriminating faculty. It is called buddhi in Sanskrit. Its domain extends to deciding whether what is pleasant is also good, and whether the unpleasant things the lower (sensory) mind is rejecting could actually be good for us.
The creamy cake may look temptingly pleasant to the diabetic, but reason tells him it is bad. Early morning walks look so unpleasant, so unthinkable, but if you make it, you are empowered by discriminating reason, that which eventually benefits you. When anger comes on, you want to slap the other person, but reason tells you to hold.
Let us see what right behavior means at various levels of our being – physical, mental, emotional, intellectual & spiritual, etc.
Right behaviour for your body
Your body is not you. You have it, but you are not the body. Treat it like a good employer would treat his employee, giving it its rightful dues, but not pampering it. For example, when you want to eat, find out whether it’s your body’s genuine need (appetite) or your mind’s endless greed (desire). When the body feels tired, find out if it is actually fatigued from overwork or just being lazy, and so on. A Christian saint called his body ‘brother donkey.’ Indeed, the body is the animal in us, our dear beast of burden. Since our aim is to love all, we cannot ignore the body – especially since it is the soul’s vehicle. But we have to remember to treat it wisely – without cruelty, without indulgence.
Right behaviour for the mind
The mind indeed is a drunken, drugged and devil-possessed monkey, unless we learn to control it. The body is much simpler in comparison. We can dominate the body through will. But managing the mind monkey is not a game of just willpower. We need wisdom – a wisdom-guided will. For example, if you order the mind not to think any more a particular thought that it has been chattering about, it is unlikely to obey unless you know the subtle rules.
Why is it so difficult to control the mind? If you know the reason, you will know the cure. The reason is, the sensory mind has excess prana or life-force; it is hyperactive and restless by nature. The mind’s restless habits of thought and action get programmed or hard-wired in the brain, which is the seat of energy or life-force. The brain then drives further habit-driven or reactive actions.
My master, Paramahansa Yogananda, author of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ ) explains that the energy in the brain is spent in various bodily functions like blood circulation, breathing (movements of diaphragm), digestion, chemicalization, excretion etc., but that most of its energy is wasted in processing our useless or misguided thoughts, feelings and emotions that our big brother mind indulges in.
If somehow the mind’s excessive energy (energy is where the consciousness is), routed through the brain, can be regulated and harnessed, not only will the monkey-mind get quieter, there will be energy available for so many worthy tasks. So we have an energy crisis at micro-level too!
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