Acharya Mahaprajna
An educated mind alone can be religious. To say that an uneducated mind can be religious is both, contradiction in terms and a self-deception. Centuries have passed and yet man has not been able to find ways of steadying the mind simply because he has not understood the above equation.
The very first step to being religious is conquest of the mind. Keshi asked Gautum [famous disciple of Lord Mahavira] how he had vanquished the foes and conquered himself. Gautum replied: “I conquered the mind and the enemies anger, pride, deception, and greed. It resulted in overcoming all the five senses. In this way, I conquered all the enemies as well as myself.
One who does not know how to conquer the mind cannot overcome the passions and senses. Without overcoming them, no one can be truly religious, even though he might follow rituals and perform ceremonial acts.
What is mind, and what constitutes its unsteadiness? Mind is one of the doors that open up awareness, which is infinite, as we have seen. To attribute unsteadiness to the mind is a mistake, for unsteadiness belongs to the body and to breathing. Until we do not master the art of disengaging the body from unsteadiness and do not know the profound truth about breathing, we will continue to regard the mind unsteady. The day body, speech, and breathing become firmly steady, we will realise the futility of calling the mind unsteady.
