The mind is engaged in two activities: Aalochana or planning and sambhaashana or dialogue. Both these follow different lines. Planning in intent on solving problems that present themselves before the mind. Dialogue multiplies the problems and confounds the solutions, causing confusion and adoption of wrong and ruinous means to solve them. The inner conversation and controversial chatter continues from morning till night, until sleep overtakes the mind. It causes ill-health and the early setting in of old age. The topics on which the chatter is based are mostly the faults and failings of others and their fortunes and misfortunes. This perpetual dialogue is at the bottom of all the miseries of man. It covers the mind with thick darkness. It grows wild very quickly and suppresses the genuine worth of manhood.

The talk that inhabits the mind during the waking stage persists even in dreams and robs man of much needed rest. And the sum total of all this exercise is, to speak the truth, nil. No man can call himself full and free unless he succeeds in stopping this evil.

The Upanishads announce certain remedial sadhanas to get rid of this obstacle to inner peace.

• The first sadhana is Pranayama, Regulation of Breath. Pranayama is no gymnastics, nor a formidable exercise. The inhaling of air is Pooraka; the exhaling is Rechaka. Retention in between is Kumbhaka. The mind has to concentrate on the period of retention and on the processes of inhaling and exhaling. When attention is fixed thus, the inner talk on other irrelevant matters will end. And mental strength is acquired.
• The second Sadhana is: immersion in karma, beneficial activity - that is to say, service to people which will help diminish the ego sense, acts that are good and godly. When one's thoughts are engaged in such activities, the mind turns away from the talk it indulges in.
• Again, the Sadhanas of Sravana (listening to spiritual advice), Manana (reflection on spiritual directions), and Nididhyasana (discovering ways and means of confirming faith in the Spirit), also of Japa (recital of the names of God) and Tapas (withdrawing the mind from sensual pursuits) have been prescribed by the scriptures more for the silencing of this mental chatter, this inner talk, as a preparation for attaining the Reality than for its Realisation.