You are what you believe. 
-Anton Chekhov 

Eknath Easwaran's Commentary

You are what the deep faith of your heart is. If you believe that money is going to make you happy, then you will go after money. If you believe that pleasure will make you happy, you will go after pleasure. Because, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” not as he thinketh in his head. There is a vast distance from the head to the heart. In the Greek and Russian Orthodox traditions, they say that whatever spiritual knowledge you have in your head must be brought down into your heart. This takes many, many years.

Knowing that their past actions may try to overwhelm them, the devotees must be prepared to combat them. God will give them the strength: His Name will be an impenetrable armor. 
-Swami Brahmananda 


Eknath Easwaran's Commentary
In principle, the training of attention is simple: when the mind wanders, bring it back to what it should be doing. The problem arises when the distraction is not a stray thought, but a compulsive resentment, irritation, apprehension, or craving. Such thoughts dominate our attention. When a self-centered thought comes up, everything in our conditioning screams, “Hey, look at that! Pay attention to that!”

When tormented by painful thoughts, many of us have cried out, “If only I could stop thinking!” But we don’t know how. The mind has gotten stuck, and we feel helpless to stop it. All the mind can do is repeat the same thought over and over.

Here again, our greatest ally is the mantram. Whenever a destructive thought comes up, repeat the mantram. When the mantram takes hold, the connection between the thought and your attention is broken. A compulsive thought, whether it is anger or depression or a powerful sense-craving, does not really have any power of its own. All the power is in the attention we give – and when we can withdraw our attention, the thought or desire will be helpless to compel us into action. 

Desire

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. 
-Ralph Waldo Emerson 


Eknath Easwaran's Commentary
A compulsive desire is like any other thought over which we have no control. It flows continuously: “I want that; I want that; I want that.” There seems to be no space between the thoughts. But when your meditation begins to deepen, two things happen. First, the thought process slows down. Second, you develop a new attitude toward desires – you begin to realize that you needn’t give in to the desire. You have a choice.

Now, when a very strong desire starts to overtake you, and your mind is just one long string of “I want that,” you catch sight of a tiny opening between the demands. It may be only a split second in duration at first, but in time it grows long enough for another thought, another kind of thought, to make itself known. “Hmmm,” we think, “maybe part of me does want that – but do I? Is it really in my long-term best interest to gratify this desire?”