ABSTRACT
More than twelve hundred years ago the Indian seer-philosopher Shankara wrote: ‘The mind of the experiencer creates all the objects which he experiences, while in the waking or the dreaming state. The poets are entirely mistaken; they should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellency of the human mind. God is the Atman, the indwelling spirit, the essence of our being. What obstructs our knowledge and experience of this truth? The impurities, desires, and restlessness of our mind. The mind is like a lake of dirty water, lashed into waves. The reflection of the sun in that lake is not clear. The sun, the light of the Atman, shines on the lake of the mind within each one of us, but because of the impurities of the mind the light is imperfectly reflected. People tend to consider ‘control of the mind’, ‘spiritual discipline’ and ‘exercise of dispassion’ as austere and forbidding.
