In plain words
Only then can we fill it with good feelings, good qualities and good conduct.
Many people lament in many ways. Svāmī, we cannot control our Manas. We cannot restrain our senses. How are we to restrain them, how are we to control them? So some of the children ask me. You need not enter into this great labour of controlling and restraining. There is a fine, easy way for it. The moon is not self-luminous. Only because the light of the sun falls on the moon does the moon shine. We need the moonlight only when there is no sun. When the sun itself is there, we pay no heed to the moon. We take no notice of the moon. In the light of this moon many doubts keep arising in us. The light of the sun leaves us in no doubt. We make it clear that the rope lying at that distance is a rope and the snake a snake. A person some distance away we decide is such and such a person. The form of the thing appears to us very clearly. But in the light of the moon there is not so much clarity. Seeing a rope you may think it a snake, seeing a snake you may think it a rope. Seeing one person we may take him for another. What is the reason? Only because it has not so much light do doubts enter in. In just the same way, our mind is the moon. Candramā manaso jātaḥ cakṣo sūryo ajāyata. This one called the moon is our mind. This mind has no light of its own. Only the light of the Ātma must keep falling on it. So in this moon, within it, all the doubts come. Is it right or wrong? Is it good or bad? In this state of doubt man sinks into narrow feelings. How long does this last? As long as this mind goes on imagining, we shall have these doubts. How long is this mind of use to us? It lasts as long as there is no aim of the Ātma. That is, as long as there is no sun, the moon is of use to us. As long as there is no aim of the Ātma, it lasts. When we see the sun itself, we pay no heed to the moon, do we? In just the same way, when we turn our whole gaze towards the Ātma, the very feeling of Manas becomes empty. Putting all your concentration on the mind, if you say, the Ātma must come within my reach, how can that be? So you need not labour to restrain the senses or Manas. Once you have turned your Manas towards the Ātma, Manas will of itself go on falling out of notice. As necessary as the moon is while there is no sun, just so necessary is the mind to us while there is no feeling of the Ātma. Once the aim of the Ātma is settled, we pay no heed at all to the mind. It has no name or form at all. Now look: the sun is shining. The moon is somewhere to one side. But who looks at it? So you need not make a great labour of restraining Manas and the senses and suffer over it.