Meditate Better: Swami Sarvapriyananda’s New York Guide to Making the Mind a Friend

Swami Sarvapriyananda begins the talk the way he often does, with a prayer that instantly sets the mood: lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality. Then he turns to a question he says appears almost everywhere spiritual seekers gather, especially after retreats and Q and A sessions in India: “I can’t meditate. My mind won’t settle. I get distracted.” If you have tried to meditate even for a week, you know how universal this complaint is. The mind does not cooperate. It has its own agenda. And it can feel humiliating, because meditation is supposed to be “simple.” Sit, close your eyes, be calm. Yet the moment you try, thoughts explode.

Swami frames the entire talk around a scene from the Bhagavad Gita that feels surprisingly modern. Arjuna, the warrior, is not a dreamy philosopher. He is practical, mission-driven, and about to step into a brutal war. Krishna has just taught him meditation in the sixth chapter. And Arjuna’s response is basically: “This doesn’t work.” Not because it is not lofty or beautiful, but because it is not practical for a mind that refuses to stay still.

That is why this talk is titled, in effect, “Meditate Better.” It is not about advertising meditation as a lifestyle accessory. It is about making meditation workable for people who feel they are failing at it.

The realism of Arjuna’s complaint

Arjuna’s diagnosis is precise. He describes the mind as fickle, restless, turbulent, powerful, and stubborn. Trying to control it, he says, is like trying to control the wind. Swami Sarvapriyananda lingers on each term, because the Gita is not just poetry; it is an accurate psychology of lived experience.

The mind is restless: thoughts, memories, anxieties, fantasies, planning, regret, and hope flow one after another in a constant stream. But restlessness alone might seem harmless, even entertaining. Like a cute dog running around a small New York apartment, it could be merely energetic. The real problem comes when the mind is not just restless but turbulent: it bites, knocks over furniture, breaks things. In human terms: it creates suffering. It can’t simply “be busy.” It stirs fear, anger, craving, shame, and the emotional storms that drain our life.

And then comes the punchline: even if you want to restrain the mind, it is strong. It fights back. Many people discover this only when they attempt meditation. In ordinary life the mind seems manageable because it is constantly fed with stimuli: messages, work, entertainment, talking, scrolling. But try to sit quietly and watch it, and suddenly you see what you have been living with.

Finally, the mind is set in its ways. It runs in grooves shaped by years, sometimes decades. It tends to return to familiar patterns: certain fears, certain resentments, certain fantasies, certain self-stories. So Arjuna’s complaint is not shallow. It is the core challenge. If the mind won’t cooperate, then devotion, non-duality, ethics, and meditation techniques remain like slogans. Lovely, but not transformative.

What “yoga” really means here

Swami then does something that can surprise people: he clarifies that in this context “yoga” is not simply physical exercise, and it is not only one narrow school. In his Advaita Vedanta framing, Krishna’s teaching culminates in a vision of oneness: seeing the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self, a same radiant divinity everywhere, not as sentiment but as direct realization.

He is also careful not to dismiss the other yogas. Devotion, ethical living, meditation, discernment, disciplined action: all of these are part of the total structure Krishna builds. They are foundational. Without them, non-duality becomes mere rhetoric. With them, the mind becomes fit for insight.

So when Arjuna objects, he is not rejecting spirituality; he is pointing to the engineering bottleneck: the mind itself.

Krishna’s answer: simple, unglamorous, and deadly accurate

Krishna’s reply begins with agreement: yes, the mind is difficult to control. That acknowledgment matters. It prevents spiritual practice from becoming self-hatred. If the mind is hard to manage, you are not uniquely defective.

Then Krishna gives two words that contain a whole life program:

Abhyasa: practice, repetition
Vairagya: dispassion, letting go of worldly pull

Swami emphasizes how unglamorous “abhyasa” sounds. We expect something mystical, a secret technique, a sudden hack. Instead, Krishna says, in effect: repeat. Train. Do it again. Return again. Build a new groove.

It is not a disappointing answer. It is the only answer that works across every domain of human life.

Why repetition changes what insight alone cannot

Swami illustrates this with a story from monastic life and a sharp psychological point. Spiritual knowledge, in Vedanta, is a breakthrough: a paradigm shift, a “before and after.” You do not merely collect information. You see the same world with new eyes.

But even brilliant insight can remain stuck in the intellect. You may agree with non-duality, devotion, ethics, and calmness of mind, yet still feel hurt when someone insults you. You may understand the teaching, yet react the same old way. That gap between understanding and living is where yoga, the training, becomes essential.

Swami gives a memorable example through an anecdote about monks asking how many times to repeat the great Vedantic statement “Aham Brahmasmi” (“I am Brahman”). The teacher replied: it is not for repetition, it is for realization. Mantras are repeated. Mahavakyas are realized.

And yet, the power to live realization is strengthened by repetition: repeated meditation, repeated prayer, repeated discipline, repeated return to the path.

The elephant and the rider: why self-help often fails

One of the most practical sections of the talk uses a modern analogy popularized by psychologist Jonathan Haidt: the mind is like an elephant and a rider. The rider is the intellect: it reads books, gets inspired, attends seminars, makes plans. But the elephant is the deeper mind-body system: emotion, habit, physiology, conditioning. The rider can suggest, but the elephant has the muscle.

That is why you can sincerely decide to wake up early, meditate, eat healthy, be kind, stop reacting, stop scrolling, and still fail the next morning. Your intellect signed up. Your body and habitual mind did not. So the elephant does not respond to lectures. It responds to training.

Training is repetition.

Vairagya: the missing half in modern meditation culture

Swami’s second word, vairagya, is often absent from secular meditation culture. Many meditation programs emphasize calmness and focus but avoid asking what the ancient traditions asked directly: Are you willing to reduce your compulsive outward pull?

Vairagya is not hatred of the world. It is not neglect of family, duties, or health. It is loosening the knots of obsessive attraction and repulsion: what Vedanta calls raga (grasping) and dvesha (aversion). These two repeatedly yank attention outward and keep the mind unsteady.

Swami makes the point vivid with a story: three drunk friends row a boat all night and go nowhere because they forgot to untie the rope from the shore. They work hard and still remain stuck. Vairagya is untying the boat. Without it, meditation becomes exhausting effort with little movement.

He also warns about a subtle danger: if you try to suppress worldly desire without genuine dispassion, you can create inner conflict. Repression is not spirituality. Krishna even calls the person who outwardly withdraws while inwardly dwelling on the world a hypocrite. The healthier solution is balance: do your daily responsibilities, but cultivate inner looseness, not compulsive seeking and avoiding.

Ten practical steps to meditate better

Near the end, Swami offers practical guidance distilled from earlier teachers. These are the kind of steps that make meditation less of a vague ideal and more of a repeatable habit:

Meditate regularly. Not only when “in the mood.”
Keep a fixed time. The mind learns rhythm.
Keep a fixed place. A consistent seat or corner trains the nervous system.
Don’t dwell on disturbing thoughts. Replace quickly, engage mind in something wholesome.
Avoid bad company when you are fragile. Protect the “seedling” until it becomes strong.
Practice simplicity. Fewer possessions and less clutter reduce mental scattering.
Cultivate vastness. Think in terms of immensity of time and space to weaken petty agitation.
Cultivate yearning for God or freedom. Desire redirected becomes power.
Spiritualize daily work. Offer actions as worship; a little ritual can elevate the mind.
Seek holy company. The atmosphere of sincere practitioners stabilizes you.

These are not rigid rules. They are levers. Use them and you will notice meditation becomes less of a wrestling match and more of a flow.

The deeper encouragement: don’t quit too fast

One of Swami’s most human points is about impatience. In every other skill, we accept training. No one enrolls at a university and demands a degree the next day. No one starts a business and complains they are not rich in a week. Yet in spiritual life we often expect instant mastery and conclude we are unfit when the mind remains restless.

Swami’s message is steadier: this is the subtlest and highest task of life. Of course it takes time. But every small effort gives immediate value: a little calm, a little clarity, a little resilience, a little less reactivity. And over time, practice and dispassion genuinely reshape the mind.

Meditation becomes better not by waiting for a perfect mind, but by training the mind you have, and slowly untying it from what keeps pulling it outward.