The Mind is Steadied not by Imagination, but by Love

Once, Saint Baba Maharaj Arvikar, his mother, and Kakuma had gone to Pandharpur, where they went with Khardikar Tai and her daughter Indu Tai, to Shri Dasganu Maharaj’s math (similar to an ashram) to listen to a devotional music performance (kirtan) by Anant Rao Athavle. The performer, Anant Rao, told the story of Mirabai. Hearing this performance, Indu Tai was overwhelmed. She couldn’t think about anything else. 

Later, after home home, she began serving food to 5 or 6 people, but she still couldn’t think of anything. Saint Baba noticed this, and then Indu Tai told him, “Since I heard that kirtan on Mirabai, I can’t think. I can’t even see the object in front of me properly.”

Smiling, Baba said to her, “Aga bai, you have to keep that in your mind. You have to compose your mind, Tomorrow, if we again go for a kirtan, and then perform Lord Shiva’s story, full of heroic emotions, will you then go to war?”

Hearing this, Indu Tai’s mind calmed down.

In Divyamritdhara, Saint Baba Maharaj Arvikar says that according to psychology, or the study of the mind, in moments of intense feelings (bhavane), our mind becomes shunya, by itself. The feeling that the mind is poured into, it begins to resonate with the divine, pure and content pulse of that feeling. In steadying the mind, love is the best solution. A supreme love, or a love of the highest order, steadies the mind very quickly because it imagines (kalpana) the self to be well respected and elevated. This is the steadied state of the mind. This is why the unique and extraordinary importance of love and devotion in/to the ultimate truth has been steadied.