Managing the Mind

 

Photo Credit:Exploring Spirituality Beyond Religion

Managing the Mind

The human mind is filled with unwanted clutter gathered from all over the place – print, visual, social media, TV serials, movies, etc – and most of it is absolutely useless information – an overdose of nonsense! Because of this quite a few minds have become ‘sick’, the brains have become unhealthy. Whenever any part of our body becomes sick our entire attention turns towards it – that’s why our minds are overactive as our entire attention is on it. We are not aware of other body parts, that awareness comes only when we hurt our hands or legs – that’s when we realise that we have hands and legs!

The healthier a body the less it is felt – one feels only that part which has become unhealthy. With a tense and very restless mind one cannot move towards the center of life. You can test yourself by sitting quietly for ten minutes and writing down your thoughts honestly on a piece of paper – you will be surprised at what you have put down, shocked even. This is the first step in analysing your own mind. Maybe deep down we are already aware of its state, maybe we are afraid. That’s why many people fear aloneness – they are afraid of being alone as then you start finding out your real state! Some people resort to drugs to forget themselves and live in a world of mental illusion – actually ironical because this life itself is an illusion, which makes the illusive world of drugs an illusion within an illusion – you are truly lost then!

Man is absolutely not as he appears to be, he is the total opposite. He is one thing on the inside and something else on the outside. And it is alright if others are deceived by what we have stuck on the outside, but the problem is that we ourselves get deceived by it. If only others were deceived by the outer appearance, it would be alright - it is not very surprising because people usually only see the outside. But we ourselves get deceived because we think we really are the image that other people see. We look at ourselves through the eyes of the other, we never see ourselves directly as we are, as we truly are.

If we want to truly know our mind and conquer it, we should lose the fear of knowing ourselves. We are interested in attaining the soul, but we are afraid of a direct encounter with ourselves. The soul is far away as the first reality is the mind – one needs to see it, know it and recognise it first. Do not suppress your thoughts, witness them and watch them go by, don’t be afraid to watch. By witnessing we understand the real state of our mind – don’t pass judgements and avoid mental conflicts and struggles – just witness the thoughts. Don’t think of thoughts as good or bad, don’t slot them into preconceived notions.

Becoming free from the shackles of the mind is difficult, tomorrow we will try and see if we can find ways to unshackle our minds and become free from the illusion of knowledge.