Mind…!!

As an incident goes in Mahabharata, Yudishtira attempts to drink water from a beautiful lake where Yaksha resided. Former was asked to give satisfactory answers to the questions Yaksha would ask else he claimed water would turn into poison. Out of the random questions he asked, there is a special one. Both the question and answer had a great impact on me ever since I heard about it, probably when I was 6 years old. Question was “what travels faster than wind?” and the answer Yudishtira gave was MIND. Of course I was too young to understand these when I heard it, but my mother gave an example that helped me to understand his answer. She said, “You can think about England and the very next moment about America, so mind is faster than wind”. Mind is not only fastest, it is most powerful too. It has ability to control an individual and hence his surrounding, province, state, nation and the entire world. Thus by conquering our mind, which is most difficult, we can conquer the world. Of course it is easy said than done, but not impossible.

 We have always told that there is a counter force within us that always projects the stuffs that are easy, no matter if it’s right or not, onto our mind. Controlling mind is nothing but suppressing this counter force such that mind proceeds in a way that is best. It doesn’t have the capacity to differentiate between right and wrong. However we can program our mind by constantly feeding in what is good. But we often surrender ourselves to our mind, especially when we are intrigued by what our mind imposes on us. In those times we ourselves loose our inherent ability to analyze things. Simple and well know example, we lie even though we are aware that it is wrong. If mind is not controlled prudently it might reach a level wherein we don’t even feel guilty for our conduct ever though we know it is exceptionable.

Our mind is like a huge reservoir of memories. Storage space of our memory is the concoction of various stuffs that are eclectically picked in the most random fashion. We believe that we don’t have control over the flow of memories, both inwards and outwards. We often remember the moments that we never want to even think about for life. Many a times we forget moments that are worth remembering for life. Indeed it is the most complicated mechanism that no one has understood till now. We can even erase the unwanted memory permanently by properly controlling the mind. If not erase at least we can prioritize the outflow by controlling our mind. Of course, it might considerable time, but it is not impossible.

Many of you are aware of the conscious and sub conscious levels of human mind. When we are asleep, sub conscious level will take over the charge of the conscious level. It’s because of this we don’t fall off the cot when we are asleep. It might have happened with us when we were kids, but now since we have toned our mind against it, we don’t. There is an urban legend, proved to be true that if you whisper something into the ears of the person who has just fallen into sleep (verge of transiting to the sub conscious level) that person hither towards it. For example, if you are very tired and want to fall asleep and snoring of someone is preventing you from sleeping. You can try and wake that person, not completely, but wake him off his sound sleep and whisper in his ears to stop snorting, it definitely works even though not in a first go.

Many a times you may expect people around you to understand what you are going through, as a right, when they actually don’t care. For instance if you are assigned to do anything in a group, you may begin to think it’s only you who is working and others are taking the credit for no reason. You may exaggerate it and impose it on them indirectly and begin despising them. At that time your mind thinks only from your perspective. You wouldn’t even want to know the fact. But what you actually need to contemplate is that “is that despise worth when group work is not the only thing??”. Mind inherently has ability to analyze and pass verdict quickly, from only one angle. Mind must be programmed to be more flexible. You might be frustrated if you are not wished by someone on your birthday. But is that necessary?? If you are frustrated, it is only your loss. Mind has to be trained to be calm for only you can take best care of yourself.

All the great men have always given importance to “mind control”. Guru Mahaveera says, “You can conquer this world, only if you have conquered your mind”.  “A man must elevate himself by his own mind, not degrade himself. Mind is man’s friend and his enemy as well” quoted by Sri Prabhupada. So is the importance of mind control. Along with training our mind to ignore the counter force, we must also make direct it to remain calm as much as possible. It is of sheer necessary to direct our mind, which is so powerful, in a right way.