Power of Mind

“The mind is everything. What you think you become”

                                                                               – Gautama Buddha

It is important to understand the wiring of the mind before the power of the mind can be harnessed. Then the obvious question is how to understand it? Continue to read for an answer.

As per science “The mind is the set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, judgment, language, and memory, which is housed in the brain (sometimes including the central nervous system). It is usually defined as the faculty of an entity's thoughts and consciousness.” 
The mind controls the human body, it guides through wisdom and knowledge. The mind resides in the brain in a non-physical form and it holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation. The purpose of the mind is to look after the wellbeing of the body, however, due to changes in the thinking patterns, wrong judgments, fear, anger, etc, the mind goes out of control and the ultimate purpose of protecting the body is defeated.

There are two parts to our mind, conscious and subconscious mind. The conscious mind is responsible for cognitive and creative thinking, whereas the subconscious mind is programmed part of the mind which works on habits set by the conscious mind. Let me illustrate this with a few examples; 

If we consider a war tank, the captain of the tank is the conscious mind, the one who has the visibility to the external world. His subordinate inside the tank is the subconscious mind who follows his instructions exactly the way it's given by the captain. Drives the tank as directed by the captain. Even being more powerful with the complete control over the tank, the subordinate obediently follows the instructions of his master(Captain).

If this has to be illustrated with the help of our India Epic Mahabharata or Gita. Lord Krishna is the conscious mind who is the source of the knowledge of the world. Arjuna is the subconscious mind who follows the instructions of Krishna (conscious mind) with all faith and trust. Arjuna’s (subconscious mind) never questioned Lord Krishna (conscious mind) on the decisions made by him, he obediently followed it.

Similarly,  the subconscious mind follows the conscious mind without any questions. It just executes what the master says. The conscious mind has emotions, thinking capabilities, etc, whereas subconscious has no emotions.

As per research, in a day 5% of the time the conscious mind is active, rest 95% of the time subconscious mind is in use. This means a lot of things like eating, drinking, driving, office work, digesting the food, etc, are controlled by the subconscious mind's pre-programmed commands. The conscious mind does it for the first few times, after which it becomes a program for the subconscious mind to do it for life, like in the case of driving. How many times are we conscious while driving, people reach the destination without much thinking of breaks and acceleration. 

The subconscious mind is born with the first cell and dies with the last breath. The subconscious mind is very powerful and controls over 37.5 Trillion cells in the body. It controls our breath, heartbeat and all functions of the body. It also protects us from any infections. The actual purpose of the subconscious mind is protecting the interest of the body. It has the power to protect or destroy the body. The subconscious mind doesn't have the capability of taking any physical action. For example, if you are feeling hungry, the subconscious mind can only alert the conscious mind. The conscious mind will take the action of looking out for food and use the hands to eat it. It is the job or the duty of the conscious mind to take action. Once the food is in the mouth, the subconscious mind swings into action. Takes care of digestion and distribution of nutrition to the body. 

The body functions perfectly only when both the conscious and subconscious mind co-exist in harmony. What if one of them doesn’t do its duty correctly? That is when the body ends-up with problems or dis-eases. It is important to train the conscious mind to give proper instructions to the subconscious mind.

Giving the right instructions is important, and over that being in the right state of mind is even more important.

There are five key states of mind calm/happy, anger, anxiety, sadness and guilt one should be aware of. It’s important to know which is the best state of mind and how to achieve it.

Calm:

This is the ideal state of mind for anyone, the mind is free from agitation, excitement, or disturbance. Is it possible to be in this state of mind all the time? No, it is highly impossible for anyone to be in this state of mind all the time. Even Lord Ram who is known as “maryada purushottam” also had his moments of fear, anger, and anxiety. But he knew the art of getting back to calmness as soon as possible whenever he lost him calm. This is an art that everyone should learn and there are few tips to achieve this state mentioned later.

Anger:

As per Wikipedia “The emotion anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state. It involves a strong uncomfortable and hostile response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat”. In this state of mind, most of the decisions are taken in a rush. There will be hardly any thinking involved, it could lead to conflicts. Any decisions made in the rush of blood will end up with bigger problems than solving it. This could cause health complications, as the flow of adrenaline increases the heart rate, in turn, causing blood pressure. Repeated anger could cause major health issues.   

The way to keep anger away is to build the habit of not reacting to situations immediately. Give it 10 seconds to a minute before you react, this would have calmed your nerves and help in making the right decision. This can be achieved by practicing meditation, as meditation helps keep emotions in check. As mentioned earlier all habits become a program in the subconscious mind. It could be tough initially, but a conscious effort will help build this habit.

Anxiety:

Anxiety is fear of the future. Anxiety moments are created when the future is uncertain with no proper planning of the future. Planning for the future is important, but most people indulge in over planning for the future. This causes uncertainty. Prolonged anxiety could cause breathing problems and high blood pressure. Couple of things to come out of anxiety.

*  Live in the NOW: Most people fail to live in the NOW, as mostly they are worried about the past or the future. So, it is important to make sure to enjoy the NOW and live every moment. The NOW is the only time we can be in. The past can’t be changed nor the future is certain. Daily Anxiety meditation will help to be in the NOW and relief from anxiety.

* Have a considerable plan for the future: Make sure to have an acceptable plan for your future, do not over plan for the future. Over planning also creates anxiety as it's too strong a worry about the future.

Sadness:

Sadness comes from the past. Like anxiety is future worry, past worries create sadness. There are so many things which are carried from the past and most of it is bad feelings, grudge, pain, and revenge attitude. Negative thoughts come to the mind more often than good memories, that’s human. Which means there is a lot of baggage on our shoulders. Once this baggage is offloaded from the shoulder’s life becomes better. There are few ways to offload this baggage;

*  Mirror exercise can be a very productive way. List out the people who have hurt you or created pain. In front of the mirror, forgive them for all the pain they have given you because it could just be the situation.

*  Build a forgiving attitude towards everyone. Forgiving should not be because you want to show-off that you are good, that’s ego. It should be to free yourself from pain and sorrow. 

Guilt:

Guilt is a feeling, people typically have after doing something wrong, intentionally or accidentally. Guilt is more dangerous than anger or anxiety, as it’s not visible to others and hurts from inside. Guilt could be caused due to that mistake, that lie or anything which you felt bad about and known only to you. If not addressed sooner, it could cause depression. Whenever in guilt, self-forgiveness has to be followed. In case of sadness forgive others, for guilt forgive yourself. Accept what went wrong and the reason for it, then release it by self-forgiveness and take corrective measures.

Serious health issues could be averted following the techniques mentioned. Knowing the way, the subconscious works will help keep the mind and body healthy. 

Giving straight and clear command from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind helps execute the command correctly. This has proved to be very effective for the body. Instead of mentioning to your mind, what you do not want or like, mention what you need and like to do, for examples;

“I do not want to be sick” is a negative command, instead we can say “I want to be healthy”.

“I do not like my job”, instead we can tell and focus on the kind of job we like to do.

“I can’t do it”, replace it with “I can do…”

This is also called as affirmations, sending the right command to the subconscious mind using affirmations has proved to be very effective. Practicing affirmations daily has proved very productive. Three things, meditation, forgiveness, and affirmations have to become part of daily life. This is proved by science and a lot of medical practices have this as a part of their holistic healing. Add this to your daily routine and let me know your feedback in the comments section. Thanks for reading and happy life.

Happiness

In search of happiness…

We generally, look for happiness and joy in external factors or material things. But the matter of fact we need to understand is, we do not get real happiness through material things. Like once Dalai Lama said “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your actions”. Which means it's not what we own, its what we do, matters. 

I remember one of my friends telling me if he buys the latest technology car, he will be happy. Yes, he was really happy until a new model released next year with additional features. He started to feel sad, he could have waited for the new features. This is a constant cycle and you will keep spending, but will never be happy. A classic example is mobile, new version releases every 6 months. If buying a new car or a mobile was full-time happiness, then we should have had a happy world around us. 

      In this world, I have not met a single person who doesn’t want to be happy. So where is this thing called real happiness? 

      Happiness according to me is a feeling which comes from within. We really need to look within than looking outside for happiness. This doesn’t mean we should not look for happy moments with family and friends. What I mean is if you are not happy from within no matter who is around you, it will not help. 

Nine Principles of happiness:

1)         Love yourself: The most important part of our life should be loving ourselves. But we dedicate our whole life for others; eat, live and die for others. The general practise when we think of ourselves is, complaining from the beginning of the day until the end of the day. We keep complaining about the way we look, that small pimple on the face, the skin colour, lack of confidence, to every possible negative thing we can think of ourselves. We forget that the only partner till the end of our life is self. So we should stop criticising ourselves and start appreciating instead. Love the way we are, everyone is different and special. Looking at what we are good at and improving on it is the key. We should not compare ourselves to anyone, we are good at our own stuff.

Try this: Do the mirror exercise every day; starting tomorrow look at yourself deeply in the mirror with eye to eye contact.  Appreciate yourself the way you are (looks), then say a few positive things about yourself. Try this for a week and see the difference in you. Be like Jessica.

2)         Do what you love: We should do what we love than forcing ourselves into things which we do not like but do it because of the compulsion. It's not always about the money or the wealth we acquire, its actually about how long we can enjoy doing something. If you enjoy what you are doing you will do it better and for a long time. When you master what you love doing, monitory benefits and recognition follows. So, I am not telling you to quit what you are doing right now and follow your inner voice, slowly make the transition. Or you can do what I am doing, I am having a day job and I do these blogs in my free time. This keeps me happy.

Try this: Sit in a quiet room for about 1 to 2 hours every day until you find what is your strength. Then work on that strength in your free time, make it a passion. This will help you master the skill. When you master skill money follows.

3)         Focus on needs: Our lives off late has been revolving around what we WANT than what is the NEED. If we change the mindset and feel happy by fulfilling the needs, we will be happier than chasing the wants. Wants are something that will keep increasing and chasing it will put you in a vicious circle of sadness and disappointment.

Try this: For the next one year look at only fulfilling the needs and no wants. Not much change in your lifestyle even with the jump in your income. Look how simple and easy your life would be. You will not be worried about others and life would be happier. You would also end up saving a lot of money.

4)         Expectation: One of the big mistakes we make is to have expectations. The expectation of returns for helping someone, expectation from relationships, to expectation of appreciation from your boss. When we have expectations there are high chances of disappointment. If we do not get the expected level of response from the other side we will obviously be disappointed. If there are no expectations then whatever comes our way makes us happy. If nothing comes, then we are fine as we had no expectations. This is an important secret of happiness. This is common among elderly people when their kids do not treat them well in their old age.

Try this: For the next few months help as many people as you can without expecting any returns. Help your colleague at work, help your neighbours. This will make you happy.

5)         Family and friends: Most of the time we are competing with our friends and family members, we want to be better than them. We are also jealous of their growth and prosperity. Instead, we should celebrate growth, happiness, and success of others. Even we will have our opportunities, then they will join in celebrating our success. This means happiness all around us.

Try this: Celebrate every success among your friends and family from the bottom of your heart. Relish the moments you spend with them.

6)         The rat race: We are always in the rat race, starting from our childhood until our retirement. Being in the rat race will always disappoint us because either we are competing very hard with someone’s leg or someone else is trying to pull ours. We should always help each other instead, for happiness at work. It's important we enjoy what we do, so we do it better. This will help us to stand out and achieve what we want.

Try this: Starting today just focus on mastering your skills than competing with others in the team. You will be a lot happier, and in the process, you will be the preferred choice because of the mastery. People will come to you for help.

7)         Be kind and Help others: Always we should be kind to others and others will be kind to us. This always is a win-win situation and keeps us happy. This means being kind to even people who are jealous or hate us. Engaging ourselves in revenge or what we say “give it back” attitude is going to only worry us. If there is nothing to give back, then what to worry about, we can just be happy. Helping people in need always makes us happy and content. The feeling we get when we receive thanks from the person whom we helped is special.

Try this: Be kind to all, to your maid, vegetable vendor to whoever you come across in the day. Donate money or food, teach the underprivileged and see the happiness in them. Kindness comes back.

8)         Keep a smile: There is a saying “Smile is a Mirror”. When we smile at someone, most of the time we will receive a smile back. In some cases, we even change the mood of the other person and make them happy. Smile is contagious.

Try this: Always keep a smile and smile at everyone you see. Initially, it could look odd, but people will always return the smile.

9)         Positive Attitude: The last but the most important one is a positive attitude.   We can experience happiness only if we have a positive attitude towards life. One thing we should strongly believe in is “All that happens, happens for good”. There are two parts to a positive attitude, one is positive thinking and the other positive action. Just by thinking positively and taking no action doesn’t bring happiness. How many times do we sit and worry more about the problem than taking that positive action? I will talk more in detail about Positive attitude and Positivity in my upcoming blogs, stay tuned...

Try this: Write down a problem you are facing and with a positive mindset, think of a solution (finalise only one, no plan B). Then put that into action. You will solve it so easily and you will be happy about yourself. 

For every principle there is an action, try a couple of them at first. Once it starts working for you, you build trust. Then you can try the rest and make it the happiness habits. All the best and do leave your comments below, I will reply.