To Be Your Best Friend Or Worst Enemy ? Gita Explains
To Be Your Best Friend Or Worst Enemy ? Gita Explains here.
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, Verse 5
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् |
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मन: || 6.5||
uddharet = one must deliver; ātmanā = by the mind; ātmānaṃ = the conditioned soul; na = never; ātmānaṃ = the conditioned soul; avasādayet = put into degradation; ātmā = mind; eva = certainly; hi = indeed; ātmanaḥ = of the conditioned soul
To Be Your Best Friend Or Worst Enemy ? Gita Explains : Elevate yourself through the power of your mind, and not degrade yourself, for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self.
To Be Your Best Friend Or Worst Enemy ? Gita Explains …
The message is simple ; We are responsible for our own elevation or debasement. Shree Krishna states that, on the one hand, as the greatest benefactor of the soul, the mind has the potential of giving us the most benefit; on the other hand, as our greatest adversary, it also has the potential for causing the maximum harm. A controlled mind can accomplish many beneficial endeavors, whereas an uncontrolled mind can degrade the consciousness with most ignoble thoughts.
Krishna says that in any undertaking, we have to lift ourselves by our own efforts. We are our own friend if we do so, and if we don’t, we become our own enemy. In other words, our success and failure is entirely in our hands. No other person can help or hurt us. When we are hungry, it does not help us if someone else eats our food. Similarly, our upliftment is in our own hands. If we can prevent ourselves from falling prey to the lower self, our higher self becomes our best friend. For instance, if we are reading the Gita and the mind gets distracted, we should bring our higher self into the picture. But if our minds continually succumb to the lower self, it becomes our worst enemy. Now, what is lower & higher self ? Read on…
Higher & Lower Self | To Be Your Best Friend Or Worst Enemy ? Gita Explains
At the lowest level exist the body and the sense organs. They have the tendency to go out into the world and seek the objects they desire. The eyes desire pleasant images, the tongue desires pleasant tastes and so on. This is our “lower self”. Higher than the body and the senses lies the mind. It is the seat of our thoughts and desires. Higher than the mind is the intellect that can make rational decisions. The eternal essence, our “higher self“, is at the very highest level. But how exactly this lower and higher self is related To Be Your Best Friend Or Worst Enemy ? Gita Explains further..
Shri Krishna urges us to gently but firmly bring our mind into control, and orient it towards the intellect and our higher self. When Shree Krishna says that we must use the mind to elevate the self, he means we must use the higher mind to elevate the lower mind. The tendency of the mind to go lower. But in the intellect that has cultivated discrimination through study of right knowledge, the mind encounters a struggle. It has to choose between being dragged forcefully into the senses, or uplifting itself towards the intellect, and then ultimately towards the eternal essence. The mind has got its own tricks, so we should control it by becoming friends with it. All of our sadhanas, our efforts, should be done intelligently, slowly and steadily. Only then does the journey become easy. That’s how you become your own best friend.
Read more about this verse https://asitis.com/6/5.html
Read also : This Verse Of Geeta Cheers You Up Instantly | Surrender to God ( https://thebrightdelights.com/this-verse-of-geeta-cheers-you-up-instantly-surrender-to-god/ )