Conquest of Mind is a book that describes practices and strategies for leading the spiritual life. Written by Eknath Easwaran, the strategies are intended to be usable within any major religious tradition, or outside of all traditions. The book was originally published in the United States in 1988. Multiple revised English-language editions have been published, and translations have also appeared in several other European and Asian languages. The book has been reviewed in newspapers<ref name=ramanujachary04/> and magazines.<ref name=coff89/><ref name=quest89/>
Background
When Easwaran wrote Conquest of Mind in 1988, he had been teaching meditation in the US for almost 30 years, and had already published a book, Meditation (1978), that systematically explained the details of his method of meditation. This earlier book had briefly described the importance of training the mind as a key part of meditation.<ref name=trainpm>The book that describes Easwaran's full 8-point program of spiritual disciplines, originally published as Meditation (1978), states that "Meditation is... a systematic technique for taking hold of and concentrating to the utmost degree our latent mental power. It consists in training the mind, especiallythe attention and will..." (pp. 9-10 in 1978 edition; p.20 in 2008 edition). The book has a section header called "training the mind" (p. 118 in 1978 edition; p. 119 in 2008 edition), and in explaining Point 6, entitled "training the senses," the book states that "training the senses means training the mind as well" (p. 162 in 1978 edition; p. 160 in 2008 edition).</ref><ref name=trainmh>Similarly, another book that described Easwaran's 8-point program, originally published as the Mantram Handbook (1977), had a brief section that included statements such as "Control of the mind is something that has never occurred to most of us; to some it may even sound cold or rigid.... But when we learn to control the mind, to slow down its feverish pace, to welcome those thoughts we approve of and dismiss those that are negative, we will find what a sense of mastery this brings..... We can all have such control over the mind that calmness becomes our natural state...." (pp. 45-46 in 1977 edition; pp. 71-72 in 2008 edition). In later editions, these paragraphs were preceded by a section-header entitled "the well-trained mind" (p. 71 in 2008 edition).</ref> In Conquest of Mind, Easwaran provides a much more extensive discussion of how his program can be used to train the mind, and the importance of training the mind.
In his introduction to Conquest of Mind, Easwaran quotes the Buddha's statement that "All that we are... is the result of what we have thought." Therefore, Easwaran says, "nothing... can be more important than being able to choose the way we think." And so, he explains,
Later, he explains that "This is not a book about the Buddha or his teachings, yet I will mention him often in these pages [because] no one teaches more clearly that mastery of life depends on mastering the mind."
Topics covered
Each US edition of Conquest of Mind begins with an introduction. It is followed in the 1988 and 2010 US editions by five major parts, each divided into 14 chapters. The chapters in Part Four were omitted in the 2001 US edition.
Easwaran's introduction explains how he uses the words "meditation" and "mystic." He cautions that mixing instructions from different perspectives can result in confusion. "If you want to become a tennis champion, you don't take lessons from Vic Braden and Nick Bollettieri at the same time; they have utterly different approaches to the game. Meditation teachers have different approaches too. When Easwaran speaks of meditation, he means
In Easwaran's language, the "great mystics" — who he often uses as illustrative examples — are people who have attained this goal. "Mysticism," a word Easwaran regards as easily misunderstood, refers to "the conviction, born of personal experience, that there is a divine core in human personality which each of us can realize directly, and that making this discovery is the real goal of our lives."