One may live in a palace or in a hut but the first house one lives in is the mind only. Only when one leaves the precincts of this house does one enter the material milieu. Is it not a fact that we don’t notice our surroundings when we are engrossed in thought?

If we agree that one’s mind is the first dwellings place of one’s soul, it becomes important that this house be kept clean and made beautiful- more beautiful than the concrete buildings we live in. The question is whether or not one does the same. The answer, unfortunately, is a big no.

Why else do we try and escape our minds? Why are we scared to fall asleep even when we want to? Conversely, why do we pop sleeping pills so readily, scared that our minds will not allow us to fall asleep? Why is there a television set even in our bedrooms? Why do we switch on our television sets as soon as we step indoors? Why is waiting such a pain, sans a magazine or TV? Why do we keep calling up others on our cell phones even when the calls have zero purpose? Why are we addicted to our laptops, email and instant messengers? Why do we settle for the company of people of doubtful utility? Is the company of one’s own mind so undesirable?

If we do spend some time with our minds, we can put it to good use. Problems can be solved, decision made. How else do writers and artists operate if not by their minds? Nevertheless, we continue as if the company of our minds is akin to solitary confinement. Our minds are no longer our friends. If we do spend time with them, they flood us with negative thoughts, psychoses, lust and bad dreams. What traps us in the vicious circle of desire if not our impure minds?

How can we purify and befriend our unfriendly minds? Let us seek answers from the Bhagavad-Geeta. In the verse # 6.35, Krishna advises practice and detachment. In the verse # 18.65 he counsels linking to himself. In the verse # 16.12, he criticises unlimited material desires. There are several others verses which have valuable guidelines. We cannot escape our minds. They are the seat of our souls that accompany us in our afterlives and beyond (verse #15.8).