Text 9
jahy āsuraṁ bhāvam imaṁ tvam ātmanaḥ
samaṁ mano dhatsva na santi vidviṣaḥ
ṛte ’jitād ātmana utpathe sthitāt
tad dhi hy anantasya mahat samarhaṇam
jahi — just give up; āsuram — demoniac; bhāvam — tendency; imam — this; tvam — you (my dear father); ātmanaḥ — of yourself; samam — equal; manaḥ — the mind; dhatsva — make; na — not; santi — are; vidviṣaḥ — enemies; ṛte — except; ajitāt — uncontrolled; ātmanaḥ — the mind; utpathe — on the mistaken path of undesirable tendencies; sthitāt — being situated; tat hi — that (mentality); hi — indeed; anantasya — of the unlimited Lord; mahat — the best; samarhaṇam — method of worship.
Prahlāda Mahārāja continued: My dear father, please give up your demoniac mentality. Do not discriminate in your heart between enemies and friends; make your mind equipoised toward everyone. Except for the uncontrolled and misguided mind, there is no enemy within this world. When one sees everyone on the platform of equality, one then comes to the position of worshiping the Lord perfectly.
Unless one is able to fix the mind at the lotus feet of the Lord, the mind is impossible to control. As Arjuna says in Bhagavad-gītā (6.34):
cañcalaṁ hi manaḥ kṛṣṇa
pramāthi balavad dṛḍham
tasyāhaṁ nigrahaṁ manye
vāyor iva suduṣkaram
“For the mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate and very strong, O Kṛṣṇa, and to subdue it, it seems to me, is more difficult than controlling the wind.” The only bona fide process for controlling the mind is to fix the mind by service to the Lord. We create enemies and friends according to the dictation of the mind, but actually there are no enemies and friends. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām. To understand this is the preliminary condition for entering into the kingdom of devotional service.