One needs to be careful of the senses, that we all know. Are we also aware that the way the senses act, with or without our knowledge, gets deep within? Anyone who has some association with the so-called mind control activity would guess what I'm talking about. Its about the layers of consciousness. In a control-mechanism, one is advised to be pure in thought, word and deed. Controlling the thoughts is actually controlling the mind since there's nothing like a mind, apart from a set of thoughts. This is an endless cycle and one is soon driven to a conclusion that the mind can't be controlled. So, we end up trying the other practical way around it. We start by limiting our habitual deeds. This, over a period, we achieve and then we move on to words. That comes quite easy too, except when under the influence of anger, where one loses control over most. Lets assume that the subject doesn't get angry and has a well-balanced temperament. This helps get over words too. Easy... done, are we? Not really, its time to purify the thought process!
After the two major hurdles of purification we went through, the thoughts are not far, we feel. But although we focus, in our daily routine, on one thing (maybe two) at a time, the thoughts come from a parallel-processing machine of infinite processors! All run true multitasking in real-time. So even if we don't think we are thinking, thinking happens. The mind is a big fat liar. It tells you that its not thinking. As Ramana says: its like the thief pretending to be a police!
Then, one reaches a phase of being fed-up and asking: whats the harm in the thoughts being impure? My actions are wise, I don't use bad words, etc. It has a multiform answer: for one, the mind is so strong with the karmic background its fed on, that knowingly or unknowingly, one has a risk of snapping back into usage of avoided words and deeds. Its like sleeping in a temple and waking up in a jungle. The mind drives you blind when it takes control. Further, even if one doesn't snap back, in sanaathana dharma, an act in thoughts is equivalent to the same act in deed. That adds vikarma too!
So whats the solution? One needs to be on guard through and through, not only in waking hours. The conscious state tells you all's well, but the subconscious acts when you sleep. Its akin to a thief stealing at night since there are people around in broad daylight! The subconscious also feeds in the company of like minds. That is, even if we've controlled the mind in our consciousness, while we work at that layer, the lower subconscious layer interacts with the peer of others in our company and builds itself. Thats where satsanga is valued. Its not for no reason that they say: a man is known by the company he keeps. Only the very advanced yogis can ignore the dirtiest rotten scoundrels around and still remain pure.
(Back in my chat addiction days, we used to use acronyms a lot and in the chat delay if we saw each other's statements that meant the same thing, we used to say: GMTA, meaning great minds think alike. Almost always, that was followed by SDNM: so do nasty minds!)
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