The river of thoughts is the mind. When the water is slow, fast, dirty, flooded, the river is slow, fast, dirty, or flooded. As the thoughts, so the mind! The thought flow can be controlled in its quantity, quality, and direction.
When the mind’s pattern is changed, the man is changed. If any of them — quality, quantity, or direction of thoughts — is changed, the other two are automatically changed. You have to give up imitating the false values of others around you, meaning, stop living blindly a stamped blueprint of life, supplied by the fashions of the times, or by the sensuous men who seek their fulfillment in sense indulgences.
Just living the routine life of unintelligent imitation of others in society is the surest way to a life of sensuality. For spiritual purposes, a most intelligently replanned way of life is to be followed. If you want to take up sincere practice, you will have to redirect your life’s flow. Hence the first thing to be renounced is the blind following of the patterns of the time.