Question: My mind wanders aimlessly when I sit to meditate, and I feel dejected by this. How can I still my restless mind?
Answer by Swami Mukundananda: The mind is such a machine created by God that it cannot remain empty; it keeps working on something or the other. To still the restless mind into a state of thoughtlessness creates an unstable condition for the mind that is difficult to maintain. This is just as while riding a bicycle, if you press the brakes and bring the bicycle to a standstill, you will fall to the left or to the right. But if you simply turn the handle to one side, the cycle will stop moving forward and very easily turn in the direction of the handle.
Meditational techniques for stopping the thought process and stilling the restless mind are highly unsuccessful. In Bhakti Yog, we do not try to still the mind; we divert it to God. We do this by meditating upon the form of God.
Make the Form of God as the basis of your meditation. In endless past lifetimes we have been habituated to interacting with forms. All the personalities we loved and all the objects we were attached to had forms, and so attraction to forms is a natural sanskar (tendency) of the mind. If we endeavor to meditate merely upon the Name of God, or the syllable “Om”, the mind will not easily experience sweetness in it. But if we have the all-attractive form of God before us, the mind will effortlessly be drawn towards it. This meditation upon the form of God is called Roop Dhyan. Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj states:
सब साधन जनु देह सम रूप ध्यान जनु प्राण।
खात गीध अरु स्वान जनु कामादिक शव जान ।। (Bhakti Shatak)
“All spiritual practices are like the body; meditation upon the form of God is like the life airs. Just as the body without life airs is worthy of being eaten by dogs and vultures, similarly without meditation upon the form of God, one’s devotion is eaten by lust, anger, greed and envy.”
Also read an article on “Achieving success in Meditation”.
