an equal reality and value present there. Then there is no question of ishta or devata
here. If there can be another ideal which is equal to this, this cannot be called ishta.
The ishta is the highest conceivable object of affection and, therefore, it is necessary
to feel the presence of the highest values in this object of meditation. Here the
difficulty that one feels is really insurmountable, because there is no conceivable
object in this world which can be regarded as the dearest, with nothing equal to it.
How is it possible to imagine such an object? There are other things also equal to it;
and as long as this feeling is there that other things are equal to it, there is a fallibility
of concentration, a coming down of the aspiration and a lessening of the intensity of
the process.
With a tremendous effort of will and understanding, we have to create an object of
concentration if we have not got one already—one which is physically available to us
in this world. All that we need should be present in it. Only then the mind will go
there. What is it that we need? Do we find it there in the object of our concentration?
If we are convinced that everything that we require, everything that is the ideal of our
aspiration is present there, naturally there is a point in the mind going towards it.
But if we think that our ideals and loves are somewhere else, then the mind will
naturally go somewhere else and not to this object. So it is necessary at the outset to
make an analysis of our needs, aspirations and requisitions. Why are we
concentrating the mind at all? Why have we taken up this task? What is the purpose?
The purpose is to achieve something. What is that something?
This something which we achieve, or wish to achieve through concentration, is
something very difficult to understand in the beginning. People are very restless in
their minds and incapable of thinking about one thing continuously, even for a few
minutes. That is the reason why they cannot understand what is good for them. If we
ask a person, “What is it that you want?”—he cannot answer this question. He does
not know what is good for him. Even a very intelligent man cannot answer this
question, because this intelligence, ordinarily speaking, is useless when we come to
this difficult problem of choosing the highest objective of one’s life. Such a thing does
not exist; it is not conceivable. Nobody has seen it and nobody can think about it. But
now comes a time when it is necessary to pinpoint this object, and we cannot
continue to hobnob with various other sense-objects, thinking that each one is
equally good. If each one is equally good, even then, what prevents the mind from
choosing one, since it is as good as the other? Why is it that the mind is restless?
Again we come to that original analysis of the nature of the mind—why it is moving
like that, from object to object. It has got many aims in intention, and these aims are
nothing but the satisfaction of the different types of vrittis of which it is constituted.
So it will not be amenable to any kind of pinpointing, because this pinpointing
implies the satisfaction of a single vritti only, leaving the other vrittis unsatisfied.
This is a difficulty which it feels, and a suspicion that it has got: “You are trying to
compel me to concentrate on one thing, so that I may get only that, but what about
my other children who also ask for many things?” If only one child is satisfied, the
father is not happy. Other children are there, and they also have to be satisfied. So,
what about the other children—the other vrittis—whom we have completely ignored,
as it were, in our attempt at driving any one particular vritti only in the direction of
the object that we have chosen now? The mind cannot appreciate that this object of
concentration is not going to be the fulfilment only of a single vritti—that it is going
to be the fulfilment of every vritti. It is something which can satisfy all our children