How can we conquer our own mind and its vicissitudes? Bhagawan lovingly motivates us with an important tip today.
The mind has an innate tendency to merge in whatever it contacts; it craves this. So, it is ever agitated and restless. Through constant practice and training, it can be directed towards “Om” and taught to merge with it. It is also naturally drawn towards sound. Hence it is compared to a serpent. The serpent has two crude qualities; its crooked gait and its tendency to bite all that comes its way. These two are also the characteristics of people. People also seek to hold and possess all that they set their eyes on. They also move crookedly. But the serpent has one praiseworthy trait. However poisonous and deadly be its nature, when strains of the charmer’s music are played, it spreads its hood and merges itself in the sweetness of that sound, forgetting everything else. Similarly, through practice, people also can merge themselves in the bliss of Om. This close attention to sound (shabda) is a principal way to realise the highest Atma, who is “the Om of the Vedas”.
– Gita Vahini, Ch XII.
