Thakur said: ‘One should engage oneself in meditation in the evening giving up all work.’ One should practice dhyana-chintan (meditation and reflection) daily regularly. Once it becomes a habit one can not do without it - one would feel bad without doing it. Why to sit for meditation in the morning and evening? To bind the mind. You see, the mind looks outwards day and night, it’s restless like a monkey for the worldly matters. One should make an attempt to pull back this restless mind and bind it internally to the lotus feet of the Lord. Daily practice makes it easy. Initially it will seem a bit bad - it is like waging a war with the mind. Later it is controlled by practice and by His grace. The boy roams about outside all the time - bring him back and make him sit at home - just this, what else?
There are many approaches to this universal problem. (In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna, in effect, complains that calming the mind is like trying to tame the wind. And Lord Krishna agrees!)
The purpose of mastering our thoughts is to realize that they are not us. The very idea that we can learn to control them means that they are separate from us, but we have forgotten this.
Therefore, another practice that is very useful when control seems quite impossible is that of watching our thoughts carefully. We can become claim mastery over the mind through controling our thoughts, and can also become the witness of those thoghts, observing them dancing through the mind. Either practice requires a great effort because in either instance we must throw the light of our consciousness upon the mind.
To be a withness to the activity of the mind requires our fucus and attention. It cannot be haphazard or supperfical.
Hence either approach leads us to discover our own true nature.
