Inner Game – In Gita Verse 6.36 For one whose mind is unbridled, self-realisation is difficult work. But he whose mind is controlled and who strives by appropriate means is assured of success. That is My opinion.
Krishna in all his compassion realised not only Arjuna’s difficulty but ours also. He says that to take the first step for self-realisation is very difficult work, but at the same time he says that according to his opinion through any practice can have freedom from mind – meaning who is required as a servant, for utility purposes.
In my Bhagavad Gita Verse 6.6, blog I wrote – Mind is a beautiful mechanism, the most beautiful mechanism in existence, but you have become a servant to the mind. Don’t fight with the mind but understand the mind.
The mind is a mechanism, it has no intelligence. The mind is a bio-computer. How can it have any intelligence? It has skill but it has no intelligence, it has a functional utility but it has no awareness. It is a robot. It works well, but don’t listen to it too much because then you will lose your inner intelligence. Then it is as if you are asking a machine to guide you, lead you. You are asking a machine which has nothing original in it – cannot have. Not a single thought in the mind is ever original, it is always a repetition. Watch: whenever the mind says something, see that it is again putting you into a routine. Try to do something new and the mind will have less of a grip on you.
People who are in some way creative are always easily transformed into meditators, and people who are uncreative in their life are the most difficult. If you live a repetitive life the mind has too much control over you: you cannot move away from it, you are afraid. Do something new every day. Don’t listen to the old routine. In fact, if the mind says something, tell it, “We have always been doing this. Now let me do something else.”
Even small changes: in the way you have always been behaving with your wife, just small changes; in the way you always walk, just small changes; the way you always talk, small changes, and you will find that the mind is losing its grip on you. You are becoming a little freer.
Creative persons get more easily into meditation and go deeper. Poets, painters, musicians, dancers, can get into meditation more easily than businessmen. They live a routine life, absolutely uncreative.
What is creativity?
Creativity means letting go of the past. Too much reliance on our past stops you from being creative. Creative person is one who lives in the moment, understands the context and looks at possibilities. Creativity means to bring intelligence into activity, you don’t need more information, you need more meditation. You need to become, less mind and more heart.
Creativity is an inner game. It stems from your love for the subject. It stems from your passion to practice, courage to try and learn by doing. If your act is your love affair then it becomes creative. Creativity is the quality you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things. Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, then it is creative.
Creativity demands a lot of courage. Because doing something unconventionally requires you take risks, be prepared for failure, and learn from it.
Once you know how to play the Inner Game, you will know how to utilize the mind.
Krishna is saying through any practice understand the mind. Don’t fight with your mind.
A mind full of desires can only understand desire. Hence the desire for God. It is absurd, you cannot desire God. God comes to you when desire leaves. The cessation of desire is the coming of God to you. Again, I am using the word ’coming’, which is not true. Because God is already there – you only recognize when the desire has ceased. Nothing ever comes, nothing ever goes, all is as it is. That’s what Buddha means when he says: yatha bhuta – things are as they are. Nothing has gone wrong, nothing needs to be put right. Things are as they are, and they always remain as they are. The trees are green and the roses are red and the clouds float in the sky. Everything is where it has always been, the way it has always been. That is the meaning of the word ‘nature’ – yatha bhuta.
Tags: Inner Game
