Taming Our Monkey Mind
by Phyllis Krystal
It is common for many people to misidentify themselves with their mind. For many, their personal I is synonymous with their minds. Most are slaves to their minds, led around on a merry chase by it, and are totally unaware that they are controlled by their minds. In fact, it would not be too much of a leap of faith to say that many people define themselves by what their mind tells them they are ... having no self awareness beyond their minds. It is these people who faint in meditation, have irrational fear of self-discovery, and a horror that beyond the mind there is nothing more than a heart of darkness. How can they answer the perennial question, "Who am I?"
"Who am I?", is a very difficult question to answer when the mind is our master, leading us around on a merry dance, satisfying its whims and desires. The mind is uncontrollable, it is grasping, ever fearful of its self-extinction, and circular in its reasoning. Many of us overlook the role of the mind in our endeavours, our search for happiness, our steadiness and concentration, and the discovery of our being, our self-awareness. What is this mind we have?
Phyllis Krystal, in this book Taming Our Monkey Mind uses the metaphor of the mind as a monkey. When a monkey finds a jar full of peanuts, it reaches in and grasps a peanut. It cannot pull its hand out of the narrow opening as it is grasping the peanut. The monkey will pull and pull and try to get that peanut in its hand out. The monkey will not succeed, until it tries another strategy. So the mind is like a mad, jabbering monkey that will not let go of what it wants. How does the monkey mind succeed in reaching its goal and hitting the mark?
We manage the mind. Mind management is a perpetual self-discipline which starts at the point of discipline, of introducing new thoughts, of having boundaries, guidelines, values and outcomes. We need to channel, canalise, restrict, guide and steer or minds. Sathya Sai Baba tells us how to do this:
Treat your mind as a little boy. Bring up that boy, train it to become wiser and wiser, caress it onto good ways, make it aware that all objects that are 'seen' are just products of one's own illusion, remove all its fears and foibles, and focus its attention steadily on the goal only.
Never deal forcibly with the mind; it will yield easily to tenderness and patient training.