If we don’t go within we go without! That’s my go to mantra when I feel overwhelmed with my diagnosis or the world around me. Going within is all about re-writing the story in our head. It’s about paying close attention to the story we tell ourselves from our limited perception on life. It’s a mind game!
A strong young man at the construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone in a feat of strength. He made a special case of making fun of Morris, one of the older workmen. After several minutes, Morris had enough. “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” he said. “I will bet a week’s wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to that outbuilding that you won’t be able to wheel back.”
“You’re on, old man,” the young man replied. “It’s a bet! Let’s see what you got.”
Morris reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then, nodding to the young man, he said, “All right. Get in.”
Conquering the Mind is the real conquest. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna instructs Arjuna: “He who conquers the mind, conquers the world”. The mind is fond of happiness. It is in the course of its search for happiness that it gets lost in this world. It has no idea of the supreme bliss of the higher regions within the human body. If it could give up its restless outward movements and turn its attention inward. With the dawning of inner wisdom, its restlessness would be arrested, and it would taste the sweet nectar of our Creator’s plan.
The mind disregards the most blissful free gifts of nature and runs in frustrating pursuit of worldly pleasures that entangle it in the vicious cycle of debt. The realisation of our spiritual goal or the attainment of the highest bliss, lies in arresting and conquering the mind. He who is defeated by the mind loses all, but he who conquers the mind conquers all.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy – if you are aware of all that in yourself, that is part of meditation. So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a car or walking in your garden, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
To create a state of mind that is conducive to meditation, we can consciously try to abstain from anything that promotes anger, lust, tension and so forth. Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the brain. For every minute you are angry with someone, you lose 60 seconds of happiness that you can never get back. If our thoughts of anger and turmoil cause us to become aware of all the anger and turmoil around us, then surely thoughts of appreciation will make us aware of all the joy and happiness that is around us. Love is within you and is not to be found anywhere outside.
So every time we have a negative thought we have to stop, take a pause and immediately switch that negative thought to, “this is happening for my highest good” and experience the joy that awaits us. This is very simple to do but it takes practice and effort to become aware of our thoughts in our mind throughout our day.
The human body is called the temple of the living God, because only in this temple and in no other can we live with the Lord and become the Lord. Anger and turmoil in our temple during the day make strong impressions on the mind. We will discover that when we sit for meditation they will be the first things that will come to our mind and we will have to expend energy and time casting them out. Whenever possible, if these situations do arise, we must remember that our meditation will suffer if we indulge ourselves in them. Remembering this point, we should let anger and tension go. If your divine Master is your co-pilot, swap seats!
Enlightened positive thoughts carry with them a higher level of vibrational energy than “negative thoughts”. Yes, thoughts coming from our mind carry energy. Our body is made up of mostly water. Approximately 85% of our brain, 80% of our blood and 70% of our muscle is water. Every cell in our body needs water to live. Dr Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist was able to crystallize water and photograph it under an electron microscope after exposing water to different words and sounds. The results were astounding! Positive words, such as love and gratitude caused the water to create beautiful crystals resembling that of a health cell in the human body. On the other hand, when negative words were spoken towards the water, deformed crystals, or none at all, were formed.
After the word “thank you”, spoken to water in different languages, beautiful crystals appeared in all of the cases. When the same water had negative words, “you make me sick” or “you fool,” directed towards it, the crystals were nearly nonexistent or the water formed no crystals at all.
The negative words, ‘You make me sick’, resembled an image of polluted water. Our body is 70% water – every time we get angry and say nasty words we are not only interfering with our meditation, we are also contaminating and infecting our own cells in our body. Ultimately it means that what we think and what we say has a direct influence on us both emotionally and physically.
It is so interesting that the most beautiful crystal formed after a Buddhist monk offered a prayer for one hour, over toxic water from the Fujiwara Dam. Dr Emoto concluded that Prayer, that’s sound coupled with intention, seems to have an extraordinary ability to restore the water back to its natural, harmonious, geometric symmetry.
Our thoughts are changing the molecular structure of our cells and depending on the thought; our cells are either energized and healed or injured. Dr Emoto was able to capture in pictures what the Saints have been telling us for centuries – that we need to be pure in thought, word and deed; that keeping our thoughts focused on the divine throughout the day will keep us happy mentally emotionally and physically.
Keeping our thoughts focused on gratitude throughout the day will not only keep us happy, but will automatically keep us more focused during meditation. If you are feeling sad or upset – it means you are choosing thoughts that are sad and making you upset. We are harming ourselves! The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have. It doesn’t matter what the outside circumstances are – we can still choose the thoughts that will bring us joy and happiness – we always have the choice to focus our thoughts on the divine.
The vibrational frequency and intensity of the power of thoughts, more specifically the emotions which these thoughts create and ignite, will harmonize with and attract precisely that which is thought and believed. So the next time you feel angry, sad, ill, annoyed or just irritated – take a pause, and tell your mind that you know better. If you continue to nip the angry and sad thoughts in the bud, you will soon start to have less and less of these negative feelings. The best way to get rid of worries is to let them die of neglect. We need to choose happy thoughts. Happiness is a choice. It’s time we take responsibility for our thoughts and feelings that are influencing the body’s healing command.