How tackle the mind?

To start with there must be a clear distinction between mind and soul. Soul provides resource to mind. Mind should use this resource to work in the interest of soul. That is soul is the master and mind is the servant. However, mind drags soul as if mind is the master and soul is the servant. Hence the first and foremost realization is this master-servant relationship of soul and mind.

Next, soul is completely dependent on mind in seeking divine happiness but mind being material product seeks its own material happiness and tries to preserve its ego. It does not allow any attacks on ego. Mind is addicted to the worldly pleasures. It is so much difficult to de-addict a person of habits of one life while mind’s addiction is of infinite past lives.

You might have seen monkeys dancing to the tunes of its master. Monkey is an extremely unquiet and fluctuating animal. But the monkey catcher trains the monkey to obey instructions given to it. For this, the trainer first ties monkey with the string of about 100 feet. Monkey keeps on leaping, running in the circle of 100 feet radius. It cannot go beyond it. It realizes its world is limited to that circle. After few days when trainer sees that monkey is comfortable with 100 feet, he reduces the length of the rope by half to 50 feet. Again monkey finds it difficult to adjust with it. After few days monkey again adjusts with the reduced freedom. This reduction in length continues till the rope reaches length of 5 feet. At this stage monkey just sits down knowing that there is no point in making unnecessary moment. Now the trainer trains the monkey to obey its orders. Monkey learns different tricks and makes a road show to please the audience.

Same approach is necessary to tackle the mind.