MIND CREATES ITS OWN IMPRISONMENT

The mind is the best friend to enjoy the most of freedom, and simultaneously it is the worst enemy to raise an impregnable fortress for imprisonment. This is an aphoristic declaration by Srimad Bhagavad Gita (6.6). When one trains and disciplines one's mind, it guides one toward inner peace, wisdom, clarity, and Self-realisation. An unconquered mind is one's worst enemy. It is because, when the mind is unchecked, it chases endless desires and traps one in stress, anxiety, restlessness, and suffering. No one can keep telling someone what to do. Does it really bring out real inner transformation? If it ever does, maybe partially but not completely. Instead, one continues to burden one's own mind with distress, torment oneself, and remain troubled throughout life while trying to change others. The key to one's own lock is in one's own hands. One does not possess the key to everyone else's lock, contends Swami Sri Govindadevgiriji Maharaj (Vivechan/learn geeta). Yet, he says, one keeps trying to open everyone's lock with one's own key. When it does not open, one becomes distressed and keeps wondering, “Why is this person not changing? Why are they not listening? "But through one's own conduct, one can teach them. Through one's behaviour, through one's happiness, and through one's joy, one can bring about transformation in them (Swami Sri Govindadevgiriji Maharaj). Yoga-Vasistha (Book 5 (Upaśama Prakaraṇa), Chapter 66) teaches that mind manufactures its own bondage through desires, projections, and identification. The chapter uses the story of the hermits Bhasa and Vilasa to show this. After their parents left this world, the two hermits are overcome by grief. They separate, wander in the forest, and perform severe austerities for years. Their bodies become emaciated like withered trees. They meet again in old age—but still without Atma-jnana, or Self-knowledge. Vilasa greets Bhāsa and asks whether he has found peace, self-possession, and freedom from anxiety. Bhasa replies that true well-being is impossible while certain conditions remain:
*The knowable (Atman, or Self / Jneya) has not been realised.
*The ground or field of the mind (Cittabhu) has not been exhausted.
*Samsara chakra, the wheel of  birth and death, has not been crossed.
*Desires arising from the mind have not been completely cut off, like weeds with a sickle.
Knowledge, equanimity, and awakening have not arisen.
*Without Self-knowledge and the great medicine of Jnana, the painful disease of transmigration keeps returning. That way the mind creates its own imprisonment.
Yoga-Vasistha (5.66.1-39) describes the mind’s self-binding activity with vivid images:
* The mind is a wild elephant that uproots its tethering post and, stirred by the female elephant of craving (Trishna), roams far and wide.
* It sinks into the blind wells of delusion (Moha), which contain both pleasures and dangers and which hold the “frogs” of inner sorrow.
* Long bound in the wheel of anxieties (Cintācakra), made restless by unwholesome actions, it whirls like a blade of grass caught in an ocean whirlpool.
* It is the fish in the river of worries—swelling and darting without rest.
* Life is wasted by worthless actions and by the sprouts of ill-fated hopes. The thread of hope for life is constantly gnawed by the mouse of death.
* Sufferings that do not truly belong to the Self are taken as "mine", and the person becomes wretched. Yoga-Vasistha (5.66) uses the hermits’ long, fruitless Tapas to make the point concrete: without extinguishing the mind’s ground and realising Atman, or Self, even intense practice leaves one trapped in the mind’s own constructions of suffering, hope, and dualities. The remedy is the cutting of mental desires and the arising of knowledge that reveals the unreal nature of the mind’s projections. 

1. Outline
Sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda has given a beautiful explanation of individuality and mind (Essays on the Upanishads and Other Essays: Kenopanishad, Divine Life Society, Rishikesh). He explains that Karma (action) and Upasana (mental worship) act as steps leading to Jnana (knowledge). Taming the mind is foremost to realise Atma-jnana, or Self-knowledge. Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Chapters 6, 16, and 17) outlines key methods to tame the mind:
• Abhyasa, or constant practice, consistently brings the wandering mind back to focus;
• Vairagya, or detachment, is to let go of obsessive cravings and attachment to the results of one's actions;
Atma-Nigraha, or Self-restraint, is not about forcefully suppressing desires or punishing oneself; rather, it is about consciously filtering and redirecting one's internal mental energy away from worldly distractions and focusing it toward higher purposes, inner peace, and Self-realisation; and
• Anusasanam, or discipline, is to control the self, or ego, located in the body-mind complex, by subjecting it. Atmanusasanam, or Self-control, is a foundational virtue to tame the mind-controlled senses by maintaining balance in daily habits like eating, sleeping, meditation, and imbibing virtues of personal observances, rules, self-discipline, honesty, truthfulness, humility, and modesty.
The immediate reality, according to Swami Krishnananda, experienced by the human being is the body-mind complex connected with the phenomenal world. The function of the body is to act objectively in relation to external existence. It is never possible to keep one's individuality inactive, because activity is a necessity that urges the individuality to transcend itself in some other state that is superior to the preceding one. Action can be destroyed through action alone, even as iron is cut by iron. Individuality can be transcended through itself. Upasana is a mental act, while karma may also be a physical act. The mind also is a constituent of individuality. The mind can be transcended through the mind itself. The laws of the body and the mind are overcome through Karma and Upasana. Karma should be done as a necessity of individual life and not as a process of self-satisfaction. This is the distinction between selflessness and selfishness. Upasana is the method of subduing the distractive character of the mind through concentration on the one objective reality, Brahman, or the Absolute Existence. He is the unified wholeness of objectivity, though in Upasana, it is not possible to consider Him the secondless Absolute. The body becomes steady and calm; the mind becomes unshaken; and the aspirant becomes fit for the higher state of Self-knowledge by purification attained thus through Karma and Upasana.  Yoga-Vasistha (5.66.1-39) describes two long-time, steadfast ascetics (Dvijas) who meet in a dense forest. Though they have spent lifetimes practising severe austerities, their bodies are emaciated like withered trees, yet they have not yet attained pure, untainted self-knowledge (Aprapta-vimala-jnanau). Encountering each other, Bhasa and Vilasa begin a dialogue deeply lamenting the cycle of existence and the nature of worldly life. The deliberations explicitly focus on the transitoriness of life, the fading of youth, the agony of old age, and the sheer vanity of worldly attachments. When they meet after a long gap, Bhasa responds to his friend's query about his welfare by reflecting on the inherent suffering of the wheel of the phenomenal existence (Samsara Chakra). He remarks that true peace or lasting welfare is impossible as long as an individual remains trapped in a mundane world governed by insatiable desire, delusion, strife, and constant decay. Bhasa delivers a poetic yet stark monologue on how human existence operates without Atma-jnana, or Self-knowledge. He compares the transient life to a toxic plant that sprouts poisonous seed during childhood; during youth, the plant expands rapidly, shooting out vibrant but deceptive leaves; it begins to flower into structural grey hair and physical decline during old age; and finally, it yields its bitter fruit at the time of death. He explains that without Atma-jnana, or Self-knowledge, human beings simply drift through a mechanical rotation of daily business, burdened by Prarabdha, or accumulated past actions (Sanchita karma) that have already been set into motion and are actively yielding results in present life situations. That cannot be stopped, altered, or avoided halfway; it must be fully experienced and exhausted through living out the current life, much like an arrow already released from a bow. One can mitigate Prarabdha by Purushartha, or free will, or Self-effort. Purusartha refers to the "goal or endeavour of a person", denoting conscious human free will, or Self-effort, and intentional action in the present moment. It adds to the stock of Sanchita Karma. Yoga-Vasistha  emphasise that Daiva is simply the momentum of past human choices—not an arbitrary external decree—and that active, mindful self-effort in the present (Purusartha) is ultimately more powerful than past conditioning. Bhasa describes the physical and mental deterioration that accompanies ageing, illustrating how the ego suffers when its temporary vessel fails, leading to loss of beauty and mental despair: As physical capacities decline, the individual is often disregarded or marginalised by others, causing deep dejection to a mind still clinging to pride. The discourses move toward an analysis of the psychological bondage that causes this sorrow. The untamed mind is described as a mad elephant that has broken free from its anchors. Driven entirely by the subtle cravings (Vasanas) for sensory objects, it rushes wildly in all directions. Bhasa describes the river of life as a muddy stream overflowing with the froth of everyday anxieties and dangerous whirlpools of repeated transmigrations. Finally, the ascetic deliberations address the concept of conditional relationships. The cognitive split—believing "this person is my close friend and that one is my bitter enemy"—is identified as the greatest destroyer of internal peace.

• Bhasa notes that these divisive dualities, friend and foe, tear at a person's heartstrings much like violent, rough winds rip through the tender stalks and fibres of a lotus pond.

2. Scriptures
In Yoga-Vasistha, Book 5 (Upashama Prakarana - On Quiescence/Stilling of the Mind), Chapter 66 (verses 1 to 39) focuses on the core philosophical concept that individual souls mistake subjective projections for objective reality, detailing how the mind drives bondage and suffering. Sage Vasistha through his discourses uses a vivid allegory to describe the chaotic nature of the human psyche: "The wild elephant of the mind (mano-matta-matangaja), having uprooted its supporting tethering post and aroused by the female elephant of craving, roams far and wide" (Yoga-Vasistha, 5.66.20-35). An untamed, frenzied elephant is incredibly powerful, destructive, and unpredictable. Sage Vasistha equates this to the uncontrolled human mind. When left unchecked, its thoughts and impulses stampede through life, crushing peace, clarity, and rational judgment. The wild elephant was tamed by tying it securely to a heavy wooden post (Allana). In a meaningful context, this post represents self-discipline, discrimination (Viveka), and awareness. When the mind breaks free from these ethical and mental anchors, it loses all restraint. The wild male elephants are easily lured, distracted, and driven mad by the presence of a female elephant. Sage Vasistha compares the female elephant to Trishna (intense desire or craving). He says "The wild elephant of the mind (mano-matta-matangaja), having uprooted its tethering post and driven by the female elephant of craving (Trishna), roams chaotically far and wide." It is a desire that excites the mind, agitates it, and coaxes it away from its true nature. Driven by its desires and severed from its grounding post, the mind leaps frantically from one thought, object, or sensory pleasure to another, dragging the individual into a cycle of endless seeking and ultimate dissatisfaction. This way, in Yoga-Vasistha, Sage Vasistha uses evocative analogies to unpack the illusory nature of the phenomenal existence (Yoga-Vasistha, 5.66.5–9) and how the human mind creates its own imprisonment. Sage Vasistha compares the universe to a pithless banana/plantain tree, which has no solid wood or central core beneath its layers of wrapping. Similarly, the worlde worlds no independent physical reality outside of our mental conceptions. An untamed mind is guided by sensory delusions. It projects structures where there are none. Like a person with an eye defect seeing non-existent floating bubbles in an empty sky, or someone who is intoxicated seeing trees spinning around them, the human mind projects a dualistic, shifting world out of the singular, unchanging Supreme Self (Brahman). As Jivatma, or the individual-Self, in Samsara Chakra, or wheel of birth and death, travels through childhood, youth, and inevitable old age, it is constantly buffeted by desires. In old age, the body loses its luster and is withered by the frost of social neglect, yet the inner craving remains unextinguished. Life is characterised as a turbulent, dangerous, muddy river (Yoga-Vasistha, 5.66.26-39). Its waves are the levities and reckless impulses of youth, its foam is the endless gathering of anxieties, and its treacherous whirlpools are the cycles of repeated rebirths (Samsara). As long as the mind views its subjective experiences (pleasure, pain, fear, ownership) as solid, absolute external realities, Jivatma, or individual Self, remains caught in an endless loop of suffering. Katha Upanishad (1.3.3–1.3.4) maps out the human psychological structure using a chariot analogy:
• Atman (The Self): The owner or passenger sitting inside the chariot.
• Buddhi (Intellect): The charioteer (driver) whose job is to reason and steer.
• Manas (Mind): The reins that connect the driver to the horses.
• Indriyas (Senses): The wild horses that pull the chariot toward external objects of desire.
• The Body: The physical chariot itself.

In the latter philosophical thought of Sri Ramakrishna's lineage, the mind is described as a wild elephant. "My child, this mind is just like a wild elephant. It races with the wind. Therefore, one should discriminate all the time. One should work hard for the Realisation of God" (Sri Sarada Devi—The Holy Mother: Her Life and Conversations, Book II, Chapter XX, "From the Diary of a Woman Disciple"). The scriptures emphasise controlling and taming the unbridled mind through Self-control, and Self-enquiry:

• Discrimination (Viveka): Constantly observing thoughts rather than blindly obeying them.
• Firm Reins / Guidance: Allowing a well-trained intellect (Buddhi) to hold the reins of the mind (Manas) so that the senses (horses) do not drag the person into chaos.
• Patience: Just as a wild elephant cannot be broken through harsh punishment alone, the mind is quieted through steady practice, mindfulness, and repetition.

3. Remarks

They say that the mind alone is the cause of both human bondage and ultimate liberation. By using the mano-matta-matangaja metaphor, Yoga-Vasistha advises that an undisciplined mind fuelled by desire will inevitably destroy its well-being. To tame this wild elephant, one must re-establish the tethering post of Self-enquiry (Atma-vichara) and detachment (Vairagya), which involves forcibly reigning in the mind's downward and agitated rushes to restore its original, pure state. By bringing the harsh realities of physical impermanence and the deceptive nature of relationships into sharp focus, the scriptures teach that trying to secure permanent joy in a temporary, mind-projected world is an exercise in futility. True peace only arises when these external dualities and mental desires are systematically dissolved. The mind, powered by latent impressions (Vasanas) and desires, projects the world, identifies with the body, generates attachment and aversion, and experiences the resulting pleasure-pain cycle as real. This is the prison. External austerity alone only weakens the body; it does not destroy the mental root that keeps manufacturing bondage. The world is a projection of the mind, as the “mind makes and stretches out the world in its imagination. " Bondage and liberation are both concepts of the mind. When the mind is pacified through discrimination, dispassion, enquiry, and realisation of the non-dual Self, the self-created prison dissolves. Liberation is not an escape from an external jail but the cessation of the mind’s activity that creates the sense of imprisonment. Blind asceticism without Self-enquiry is to suppress the body but fail to see that the world is a projection of the mind. True liberation (Moksha) does not come from physical starvation or changing locations but from stilling the "wild elephant" of desire and recognising that the universe is a dream from which Jivatma must be awakened.

-Asutosh Satpathy