The five indications or signs of a disturbed mind are mentioned in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras:
- Dukha (sadness)
- Dourmanasya ( bitterness)
- Angmejayatva (restlessness or lack of coordination in the body)
- Irregular breathing: If you have observed your breath, when you’re happy or excited, your incoming breath is longer. You are more aware of your incoming breath. And, when you're unhappy, your outcoming breath is longer. When you’re joyful, you’re only breathing. A total imbalance of the breath happens.
- Distraction
How to get rid of these obstacles?
By ‘Ek tattva abhyasa’. To get rid of them, just do one thing – beat the bush! Just go on beating it. Do only one thing. One-pointed attention in one thing. What happens when you just keep doing one thing? Boredom comes, and restlessness surfaces. This boredom and restlessness take you to a peak that brings clarity. This is the only way out. Our mind is troubled because it is dwelling on duality. It has choices, so it is confused, and then the mind is further divided. A divided mind is misery.
A one-pointed mind is joy. All those moments when you have been very happy, if you have observed what happiness is, it is the mind becoming one, whole. It becomes so total, so together then you’ve experienced joy, peace, and bliss. Then, you’ve experienced life itself - totally.
Duality or a divided mind is the cause of fear and misery. Ek tattva abhyasa is attending to one principle. It could be god, a matter, guru, or Self. It could be anything, but practice one thing. Then, you get over all these obstacles.
This is a transcript from a talk by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. You can watch more talks on The Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar youtube channel. Subscribe today!
