Yoga Is Mind Control

Learning to stop thinking From a Parisamvada

- Dr. Jayadeva Yogendra

There are certain questions that are unanswerable. For example, what if human beings stopped thinking? It is something that is not possible as much as human beings living forever. Controlling the mind is impossible. It keeps on working and when it is working, it consumes a lot of energy. So we are short of energy. We make little attempts where we don't think for a little while. But to get total control, where no thinking occurs at all, is something impossible. But strangely enough, yoga believes in it.

The opening definition of yoga is complete control over the mind and stopping of thinking. That is the ideal. So naturally, there must have been attempts and some may have succeeded. This process of seeing, listening, thinking, takes up a lot of our energy. And they are such automatic functions that they just go on. So we are drawn out into the world where there are many physical activities that affect our life.