Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

Concentration on the Self requires intense control of the mind and many complained to Ramana Maharshi that it was not easy.

In the evening a visitor asked Bhagavan how to control the wandering mind. He began by saying that it was a question which particularly troubled him. Bhagavan replied laughing:

“That is nothing particular to you. That is what everybody asks and what is dealt with by all the scriptures, such as the Gita. What other way is there except to draw the mind back every time it strays or turns outwards, as advised in the Gita? Of course it is not an easy thing to do. It will come only with practice.”

The visitor said that the mind strays after what it desires and won't stay fixed on the object we set before it.

When there was this sort of complaint, Bhagavan sometimes answered that Self-enquiry does not set any object before the mind but simply turns it in on itself, seeking its source. On this occasion, however, he answered from the point of view of desire or happiness.

Everybody seeks only what brings him happiness. Your mind wanders out after some object or other because you think that happiness comes from it, but find out where all happiness comes from, including that which you regard as coming from sense objects. You will find that it all comes from the Self alone, and then you will be able to abide in the Self.

Day by Day with Bhagavan by A. Devaraja Mudaliar (5th Edition,2002) p. 298.