Eknath Easwaran's Commentary
Training the mind is just that – a matter of training.
It’s a little like tennis. Championship tennis players have amazing skills and can direct the ball wherever they like: along the sideline two feet from the baseline, precisely. But the untrained player is going to find that most of his or her strokes will be out-of-bounds. This is because he or she hasn’t learned tennis.
In tennis, we understand perfectly that the person who hasn’t practiced is not going to enter championship play at Wimbledon and win the prize. I have never heard of anybody talking about instant mastery of tennis. So why do we think that love will be instant, or spiritual growth will be instant?
All of this calls for a lot of hard work. If we start today with all the zeal and the enthusiasm we are capable of, we can undertake this greatest of adventures – training the mind. Then, like the tennis pro, we can direct our thoughts just as we like: over the net and just inside the court.