How to keep the mind centered?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): (Reading question) “Acharya Ji, please show me the light, so that I could be at my center. Sometimes, I feel, when I listen to you or when I read the verses, a certain centeredness within me. What is that? And, how can I remain centered? Please explain how to remain in just Peace and in the Loved One? Thank you, Guru Ji”.

You say that you get glimpses of centeredness in the sessions when I speak or when you read the Scriptures. My words are not very important. The verses too are not very important. What is important is your condition when you are listening to me or reading the verses. See how you are when you listen to me. See how you are when you are with the great books. Remain that way.

I repeat, there are two things happening when you are with me. One, I am sitting in front of you. Second, you are respectful, disciplined, loving, meditative, silent, and admissive of something beyond you. When I’m sitting in front of you, do you bother about the miscellaneous little petty things of your life? You don’t.

That’s the condition of your mind. My presence in front of you does not matter so much, that condition of your mind matters. You can even call it a coincidence that that condition comes to you in my presence. Or, you can call it my technique that I sit in front of you and induce that condition in your brain.

But, irrespective of what you call it, your mind and its state is more important than me or the Holy Scriptures. You tell yourself when you are in front of me, “stay quiet,” don’t you? When you are in front of me, you tell yourself, “stay still.” Do you allow yourself to fidget, and dither, and vacillate, and run about when you are listening to me? And, the body might be telling you to do a bit of that; the body is a monkey.

You’re listening to me and the body might say, “Let’s go out for a little walk.” Or, the body might say, “Why not take a quick nap?” Or, the body might say, “Let’s eat something or drink something”. Do you allow yourself all that? No, because you have told yourself that there does exist something of the beyond, and when you are in the company of the beyond, then you better live in a certain reverence.