I am all by myself at the present.I don’t have a teacher to help me and all I can take guidance from is a few books which I’ve downloaded over the time.But that is definitely not important as the mind control is to be learnt and practised all by oneself if best results are expected.
Coming on to my life I after studying a few books got pretty interested in this and believe me it is proving to be a very enjoyable experience.Reading your own mind is a necessary thing to do if we have to succeed here and beyond as it gives an insight into our own way of thinking and also guides our consciousness to the present.As I have learnt my mind has only three kind of processes,it may be different for others.Anyways these are:
Memories of the past
Expectations about the future
Fantasies.
And all these processes are interlinked a lot of times.Sometimes it occurs as a chain and it really is amazing to note how the processes interchange.And as usual these processes are coloured by feelings which are:
sadness
happiness
neither sadness nor happiness
As expected these feelings change the state of the mind as well.I mean if i take a sample chain of processes,I find some of them arouse happiness,some of them arouse sadness and some of them arouse neither happiness nor sadness.And the state of the mind after the process is equal to the magnitude of either happiness or sadness.If happiness dominates,it is happy and vice versa.Thus we say that happiness and sadness are interlinked.All right this is how these processes about past and future affect our present state of mind.Therefore, we feel the need for mind control.Mind control is nothing but understanding the above cycle and finding a way to resist the change of state of mind due to these processes,I feel.
Buddha has devised a very effective way to control the mind and it is :live in the present.Avoid/ignore all the useless processes and focus on the present.And how to do it?Well the answer is Meditation.It is the best thing to steer the mind in the present but the object of focus is also very important.Breathing or heart beats are the best examples we can take to be the objects as nothing can be more present than them.
Till now I was concerned about processes originating in the mind itself.There are also other processes which are initiated by the inputs from the sense organs i.e the eyes,nose,ears,skin and tongue.Each of the sense organs is constantly sending input to the mind but due to limitations of our consciousness we can’t receive more than one input at a time.The input and the later process started due to the sense organs also have the flavours of happiness,sadness and neither happiness nor sadness.Pleasurable things seem to bring happiness,non pleasurable things seem to bring sadness and a lot of things go unnoticed as they bring neither.And obviously being inclined to pleasure,the mind seeks the pleasurable experience and tries to drive us towards obtaining it.If we blindly follow the mind,well it can have destructive consequences.So then what can we do?well again mind control is the key.We have to understand this cycle and try not to seek pleasure from attachment to non permanent objects.If it’s coming take it,otherwise let it go.who has time to waste over these temporary things.I’ve started to practise mind control during these days and well although I’m having problems at present,I hope small problems don’t count if you are looking for big success.Non attachment is the thing to practise extensively as it releases us from the material chains which we never even hope we can break from!But now I hope that I’ll not be bound by my desires and I’ll decide about my life and not my desires.I remember something which Appolonius,a Greek philosopher told when he returned from India:
In India I found a race of mortals living upon the earth,but not adhering to it.
Inhabiting cities,but not being fixed to them,
Possessing everything but possessed by nothing
See the detachment?This is our legacy.All our ancient people have been practising this mind control for ages no wonder why Indian civilization has survived for so long and will continue to do so.
Coming on to my life I after studying a few books got pretty interested in this and believe me it is proving to be a very enjoyable experience.Reading your own mind is a necessary thing to do if we have to succeed here and beyond as it gives an insight into our own way of thinking and also guides our consciousness to the present.As I have learnt my mind has only three kind of processes,it may be different for others.Anyways these are:
Memories of the past
Expectations about the future
Fantasies.
And all these processes are interlinked a lot of times.Sometimes it occurs as a chain and it really is amazing to note how the processes interchange.And as usual these processes are coloured by feelings which are:
sadness
happiness
neither sadness nor happiness
As expected these feelings change the state of the mind as well.I mean if i take a sample chain of processes,I find some of them arouse happiness,some of them arouse sadness and some of them arouse neither happiness nor sadness.And the state of the mind after the process is equal to the magnitude of either happiness or sadness.If happiness dominates,it is happy and vice versa.Thus we say that happiness and sadness are interlinked.All right this is how these processes about past and future affect our present state of mind.Therefore, we feel the need for mind control.Mind control is nothing but understanding the above cycle and finding a way to resist the change of state of mind due to these processes,I feel.
Buddha has devised a very effective way to control the mind and it is :live in the present.Avoid/ignore all the useless processes and focus on the present.And how to do it?Well the answer is Meditation.It is the best thing to steer the mind in the present but the object of focus is also very important.Breathing or heart beats are the best examples we can take to be the objects as nothing can be more present than them.
Till now I was concerned about processes originating in the mind itself.There are also other processes which are initiated by the inputs from the sense organs i.e the eyes,nose,ears,skin and tongue.Each of the sense organs is constantly sending input to the mind but due to limitations of our consciousness we can’t receive more than one input at a time.The input and the later process started due to the sense organs also have the flavours of happiness,sadness and neither happiness nor sadness.Pleasurable things seem to bring happiness,non pleasurable things seem to bring sadness and a lot of things go unnoticed as they bring neither.And obviously being inclined to pleasure,the mind seeks the pleasurable experience and tries to drive us towards obtaining it.If we blindly follow the mind,well it can have destructive consequences.So then what can we do?well again mind control is the key.We have to understand this cycle and try not to seek pleasure from attachment to non permanent objects.If it’s coming take it,otherwise let it go.who has time to waste over these temporary things.I’ve started to practise mind control during these days and well although I’m having problems at present,I hope small problems don’t count if you are looking for big success.Non attachment is the thing to practise extensively as it releases us from the material chains which we never even hope we can break from!But now I hope that I’ll not be bound by my desires and I’ll decide about my life and not my desires.I remember something which Appolonius,a Greek philosopher told when he returned from India:
In India I found a race of mortals living upon the earth,but not adhering to it.
Inhabiting cities,but not being fixed to them,
Possessing everything but possessed by nothing
See the detachment?This is our legacy.All our ancient people have been practising this mind control for ages no wonder why Indian civilization has survived for so long and will continue to do so.
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