Who’s Really Holding the Reins of Your Life?

I’ve been studying Buddhism for a few years now.

And by “studying,” I should probably clarify that I mean reading books, listening to people a whole lot smarter than me, attempting to meditate more then casually, asking lots of questions, and trying to convince myself that I understand something before realizing I absolutely don’t.

But Hinduism? For whatever reason, I kept that one at arm’s length.

At first glance, it just seemed like… a lot.

Thousands of years of philosophy. Ancient Sanskrit texts. Gods with multiple arms. Elephant trunks. Blue people. Monkeys. Reincarnation. Yogis. Gurus.

I remember thinking, “Yeah…Maybe I’ll get to that one later.“

Buddhism was already keeping me plenty busy. But one of the unexpected gifts of hosting The Story of Us: From Cosmic Dawn to the Depths of Being has been allowing other people to disrupt my carefully curated reading list.

Guests keep introducing me to ideas I wasn’t seeking.

Gayathri got me thinking more seriously about Hindu philosophy.

Scott introduced me to non-dualism, which I found simultaneously fascinating, beautiful, and incredibly difficult to explain to another human being without eventually saying something like, “Well…apparently we’re all one thing, but also not really a thing, and you aren’t actually the you that you think you are.”

I’m still working through that one.

On the podcast, I usually find myself asking guests what they’re reading, what has influenced them, or what I should read next. Eventually, when enough unrelated people recommend the same book, I feel compelled to check it out.

That happened with Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

So I bought it. I’m reading it now. And I’m captivated.

I’m not sure yet what I believe about everything I’m encountering in its pages, but increasingly I don’t think that’s the point of reading these kinds of books.

I’m trying hard to become less interested in immediately deciding whether something fits neatly into what I already believe and more interested in asking:

What might this have to teach me?

All this talk of ancient Hindu tradition has also rekindled an old urge I’ve set aside for a few years- to take an extended solo pilgrimage trip through India.

(I haven’t mentioned that part to my wife yet)

So, Jessica, if you’re actually reading these every week like you claim you are, congratulations. You’ve discovered the Easter egg and, if you mention my upcoming trip to India this week without prompting, I’ll take dish duty for a whole week.

That’s a legally binding offer. Maybe.

The funny thing is, looking back, I probably should have seen all of this coming.

Not long ago, I wrote about the ancient Hindu concept of the ashramas, the four stages of human life and the idea that, as we grow older, perhaps our task slowly shifts from building and accumulating toward wisdom, contemplation, and eventually letting go.

Now Autobiography of a Yogi lands in my lap. Hindu ideas keep magically appearing in conversations. And then another related concept popped up in a podcast I listen to.

A chariot. Five horses. A set of reins. And one surprisingly modern question:

Who is actually steering your life?

Five Horses and a Chariot

The idea came onto my radar while listening to a Jay Shetty – On Purpose episode last week.

I’m a fan of Jay’s work and was fortunate enough to briefly interview him last year. He has an unusual gift for taking ancient ideas and translating them into something modern people can actually wrap their heads around.

But the more I started researching this particular metaphor, the more I realized there was considerably more depth to it than I first understood.

So down another rabbit hole I went.

The image comes most famously from an ancient Hindu text called the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, written more than two thousand years ago.

And if you’re new to Hindu philosophy like I am, don’t let the name scare you. The setup is actually pretty simple.

A young boy named Nachiketa finds himself talking to Yama – no big deal, just a little kid and The God of Death having a little chat.

And because apparently ancient Indian kids were significantly more philosophically ambitious than I was, Nachiketa uses the opportunity to ask Death some pretty serious questions about life.

• Who are we?
• What survives?
• What is the Self?
• What does it mean to live wisely?

And somewhere in that conversation, Yama gives him a metaphor.

Imagine a chariot.

• Your body is the chariot.
• Your five senses are the horses pulling it: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
• Your mind is the reins connecting the horses to the driver.
• The intellect (our capacity for discernment and wisdom) is the charioteer.
• And sitting in the chariot is the Self (the deepest part of who we are).

Turns out, I had misunderstood the story as Jay described it. I originally thought the chariot represented the mind.

It doesn’t. More interestingly, the mind isn’t even driving.

The mind is the reins. That distinction got me wanting to learn more…

Your Mind Isn’t the Driver

Ancient Indian philosophy made a distinction that we often blur together today.

There is the restless, reactive “monkey” mind. But there is also the part of us capable of observing, discerning, and choosing. The five “horses” encounter and encode our world.

• The eye sees something.
• The ear hears something.
• The tongue tastes something.
• The nose picks up a familiar scent
• The body wants something.

Those signals tug on the reins and the mind takes it all in:

• I want that.
• I’m afraid of that.
• Everybody else has that.
• Check the phone.
• Eat another one.
• Buy it.
• Run.

But according to the metaphor, something else is supposed to be holding those reins. Discernment. Awareness. Wisdom – The ability to pause between desire and action and ask:

Is that actually where I want to go?

Suddenly this two-thousand-year-old chariot began feeling relevant to our modern life.

There Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong With the Horses

Here’s the part I like most. The lesson isn’t that the horses are bad.

You need the horses. A chariot without horses isn’t enlightened.

It’s parked.

Our senses connect us to the extraordinary experience of being fully alive. They allow us to see beautiful sunsets. Taste delicious food. Hear music. Smell the moment before a big rainstorm. Hug someone we love.

The horses provide us with energy, experience, pleasure, beauty, and movement. The problem begins when the horses set our GPS coordinates for us.

An untrained horse sees something interesting and sprints right for it. Another smells something and changes direction. Another gets frightened and bolts.

One horse wants pleasure. Another wants safety. Another wants what all the other horses have.

And suddenly the chariot isn’t really going anywhere intentionally. It’s just being pulled.

Tell me that doesn’t sound familiar.

Our Horses Have Smartphones Now

Ancient horses had to wait for the world to bring something interesting to them. Our horses don’t. We carry a device in our pocket capable of stimulating almost every horse endlessly and with no limit: like a giant, all-you-can-eat buffet of dopamine.

• Our eyes can scroll Tik Tok forever.
• Our ears can listen to streaming music on endless repeat.
• Food can arrive at our front door without us even leaving the couch.
• Instagram gives us an endless stream of novelty, comparison, beauty, outrage, fear, approval, rejection, and desire.
• Netflix eventually has to stop and ask if we’re even still there.
• Amazon has reduced the distance between “I want that” and “I own that” to mere seconds.

And, on top of all that, thousands of incredibly smart people are employed by enormously profitable companies whose job it is to figure out essentially what makes our horses run.

That’s not a conspiracy. It’s a business model. Attention is valuable so everybody wants a piece of ours.

I don’t think the answer is to declare technology evil. I’ve written before that I believe technology can also become an extraordinary tool for connection, education, compassion, and loving-kindness. The tool isn’t necessarily the problem.

But, the ancient question still remains:

Who’s actually holding the reins now?

Humans have spent the last few decades making the horses incredibly fast.

I’m not sure we’ve invested nearly as much effort teaching the charioteer how to drive them.

Humanity Keeps Finding the Same Metaphor

I did quite a bit of research preparing this post… and this is where my Story of Us brain really kicked into overdrive. Because India wasn’t the only civilization that looked at human nature and somehow saw horses.

Several centuries before Christ, Plato gave us his own famous chariot metaphor. His version was a little different. Plato imagined a charioteer trying to control two horses, one noble and one unruly. He used that as a way of describing competing forces inside the human soul.

Different civilization. Different philosophy. Still…horses.

Much later, Sigmund Freud would compare the relationship between the rational ego and our deeper drives to a rider on a horse. The horse possesses the power- the rider likes to believe he’s in charge. (Although sneaky Mr. Freud mischievously pointed out that sometimes the horse seems to choose the direction while the rider convinces himself afterward that that’s where he wanted to go).

I’ve definitely taken a few metaphorical rides like that.

Even Buddhist philosophy eventually borrowed chariot imagery, although Buddhists being Buddhists, they used it to ask an entirely different question:

If you take away the wheels, axle, reins, frame, and every other part… where exactly is the “chariot”?

And then they ask the uncomfortable follow-up: Maybe the person you think of as “you” works the same way. Another rabbit hole… Another blog post maybe.

We’re not going there today.

My point is simply that human beings have been noticing the same basic problem for a really, really long time.

We contain impulses. Desires. Fears. Sensations. Thoughts. Habits.

And somehow, in the middle of all that stimulation we have to somehow figure out whether we’re consciously navigating life or just being dragged through it.

Maybe This Is What Mindfulness Is For

The more I sat with this metaphor, the more it connected back to Buddhism for me. One of the biggest misconceptions I had when I first started practicing mindfulness was that meditation was somehow about eliminating thoughts.

Empty the mind. Become perfectly chill. Stop thinking.

I remain spectacularly unsuccessful at all three.

What mindfulness has slowly taught me instead is to notice.

• Notice the impulse before automatically following it.
• Notice anger before becoming angry.
• Notice fear before constructing an imaginary future around it.
• Notice myself reaching for the phone without having any idea why I’m reaching for it.

There does exist a tiny space between sensation and response. A little gap between the horse pulling…and the charioteer picking a direction. Mindfulness strengthens that space. Maybe every time we become aware of an impulse without immediately obeying it, we’re learning to feel the reins in our hands.

Not yanking on them.

Not whipping the horses like a Kentucky Derby jockey heading into the 3rd turn.

Just a tiny pause and a gentle reminder:

I’m supposed to be steering.

Where Are Your Horses Taking You?

I’m clearly still a beginner in all of this but… I’m reading. Listening. Podcasting. Writing these essays… and following strange philosophical breadcrumbs wherever they seem to lead.

• Buddhism steered me toward mindfulness.
• Podcast guests pushed me toward Hinduism (and convinced me to pick up a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi).
• Jay Shetty casually introduced me to the five horses and a chariot.

And now, I guess, I’m seriously planning a pilgrimage through India that my wife may or may not discover while reading this.

Maybe that’s what seeking actually looks like? Not finding one perfect answer.

• Finding and following the patterns.
• Remaining curious.
• Listening when ideas from different people, cultures, religions, and centuries start pointing toward the same place.

So I’ve been trying to notice my horses lately.

• What grabs my eyes?
• What captures my attention?
• What causes me to react without pause?
• What am I chasing just because everyone else seems to be chasing it?

And most importantly:

Is it taking me somewhere I actually want to go?

Maybe spend a few minutes with that question this week.

Think about your own chariot. You don’t need to become a Hindu scholar. You don’t need to meditate on a mountaintop. You don’t need to suppress every desire or throw your smartphone in the toilet.

Just notice.

When one of the horses starts pulling.

Feel the reins in your hands.

Pause.

Then ask yourself:

Who’s making this decision?

Wisdom isn’t about getting rid of the horses. It’s about loving them, understanding them, training them… and remembering that they were never supposed to choose the path.

Your horses are powerful.

The road is long.

And somewhere in the middle of all the noise, desire, fear, beauty, distraction, and wonder of being alive…

the reins are still in our hands.

At least, I think they are. I’m still figuring it all out.

Interested in diving deeper? Check out some recent podcast episodes that wade into this pool.

Hit reply and tell me: which of your horses pulls the hardest? I read every one, and with your permission, a few may show up in a future Letter.

If someone forwarded this to you, you can get a Letter every Thursday, free: Letters From The Middle of It All

This Sunday on The Story of Us: Karen DeBaun on yoga, healing and what your body is trying to tell you. New here? Start HERE