Day 9
The mind gallops towards the world of five senses. If you just be quiet, close your eyes, or open ur eyes, or do anything, where does your mind go? It goes towards the sensne of sight. It is the same for the sense the smell, taste, sound, touch.
And this craving for any of these experiences in the mind can prevent you from being in the present moment. Vairagya is retrieving your senses from the craving or from the thirst for something back to its source for a few moments. Then, you will feel that however beautiful a scene is you are not interested in looking at it.
However great the food, you feel that it is not the time for it, that you are not interested in tasting it then. However melodious the music maybe, you do not want to listen to it at that time. It may be wonderful to touch something but then you are not interested in touching it or feeling it at that time. Vairagya may be present for even a few moments.
This is a another basic requirement for meditation. This dispassion has to arise in your mind whenever you what to do meditation - a deep meditation. Without dispassion, your meditation is no good. It is of no use. It cannot provide you the rest that you are longing for.
Your mind is tired and burnt out because of its galloping on towards desires after desires. Just look back and check all the desires that you have achieved. Have they given you rest? They have not. They have just created a few more desires in you.
Have they given you any fulfilment? They have not. They have just given you a greater hope that you can achieve more; that you can have more. And that has sent you on another pointless trip. You are in a merry-go-round. It's not even a merry-go-round.
A merry-go-round has dummy horses which you sit on. The horses do not go anywhere. They just go round and round in the same place, but give you an illusion that you have travelled miles and miles - an illusion because you have reached nowhere.
Life has been such a journey where you are galloping, galloping and galloping and reaching nowhere. This is what desires do for you. The mind which is obsessed with desires cannot meditate. There are two types of attitudes. Some people feel that the mind should not have any desires and this becomes another desire.
Destroy the desires. Some people are in this trip to destroy their desires. They are beating around the bush. Nothing happens to them. This principle should be very well understood.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS