Control of thought

 

According to the books, one need to have all the reins of controlled thought in one’s hand.

 Asceticism, the mastery of oneself, does give a sense of strength and self-confidence.

 The mind must go beyond all experiences, or otherwise it is imprisoned in its own projections, in its own desires and pursuits.

Being conscious of this fact, how is the mind to break down the walls of the prison that has built around itself?

Concentration in meditation is a form of self-centered improvement; it emphasizes action within the boundaries of the self.

Concentration is a process of narrowing down thought. The mind is taken over by the image or by the object, external or inward. 

The image or the object is then all important, and not the understanding of the mind itself. Concentration on something is comparatively easy.

Discipline does shape behavior and mold thought to the desired, when there is an awareness of the ways of desire, that awareness brings clarity and order.

Concentration is the way of desire. The liberating factor is never a mere verbal comprehension but the perception of the truth or the falseness of the matter. If we can understand the implications of concentration and see the false as the false, then there is freedom from the desire to achieve, to experience, to become. From this comes attention, which is wholly different from concentration.  In attention this dual activity is not present; there is an absence of the experiences, the one who gathers and repeats.

A still mind is not the product of will, of discipline, of the various practices to subjugate desire. All these practices and disciplines only strengthen the self, and virtue is then another rock on which the self can build a house of importance and respectability. The mind must be empty of the known for the unknowable to be.

To see the false as the false is in it self is enough, for that very perception frees the mind from the false.