Where to Attach the Mind?

Parable of The Advocate’s Turban

An advocate was leaving the house in order to go to the Court. Just as he stepped on the road, he found that his turban was loose and as he took the next step, it collapsed. The entire length of the turban-cloth lay on the ground. He started tying it up again on his head. He could not. Every time he tried, he failed. He looked around. He discovered that at the foot of the staircase to his house there was a dome-light whose dome was of the size of his own head. He ran towards it and tied the turban around it, suggesting to himself that it was a head. Now he was perfectly successful. He then removed the neatly tied turban from the dome and placed on his own head and walked away to the Court.

The man trying to leave this worldly atmosphere of pain and death, to go to the Court of the Supreme Monarch, God, finds that his turban (the mind) is loose. It is out of shape. It is all over the place. He tries to gather it together and make out of it a beautiful turban for his head; in other words, to do Samadhi with one-pointed mind and crown himself or to reach the Sahasrara at the crown of the head. Every time he tries, he fails. The Consciousness residing in the Sahasrara is too subtle for him to see and tie his mind upon. He looks around himself. He finds an image of the Lord. For a moment he feels that it is as good as God or the Supreme Consciousness itself. He fastens the mind on to this image. When all the mind has been firmly gathered on the image, then he quickly removes it from the image and raises it to the Sahasrara, to the Supreme Consciousness. Now he finds it easy. Then he walks away happily to the Court of the Supreme Monarch, God.

Source: pgs. 111-112, Parables of Sivananda