“For the being who has conquered the mind, that being’s mind is the best of friends; but for one whose mind is uncontrolled, that mind acts as the worst of enemies” (BG 6:6).
The mind is the source of our greatest joys and our greatest miseries. It is hard to stay motivated in controlling one’s own mind, especially when things don’t seem to be going correctly in life. But it is even harder to stay motivated in controlling one’s own mind when everything is going well, because then there is little motivation to change a good thing.
When things are not going well, it helps to remember that misery comes from binding oneself to one’s work — self-identification, as Swami Vivekananda calls it. What exactly this means can be debated, but thinking this thought while feeling bad can instigate recovery. I am thinking this right now.
When things are going well, that is the real challenge — to realize that the present happiness is internal, and replicate that happiness with the flick of a mental switch at any later time, that is the goal.
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