MIND POWER
Master has said that "A powerful will made at the very first step and maintained all through shall never fail to achieve complete success." We also were told by our well wishers that 'where there is a will there is a way,' The only problem in this is that no one really ever told us how to make that ' will ' and we always found ourselves no wiser for the advise. Master also advised us to think or imagine that there is a Divine Light without luminosity and meditate. He advised that we should ignore all thoughts while meditating. He assured that the suggestion given at the beginning of meditation will continue to work at the sub-conscious level through the period of meditation. He was here revealing the power of the Mind. He was saying that we can achieve our objective if we instruct our mind and subconscious mind properly. Unfortunately most of us don't know how to instruct the mind or subconscious mind. Therefore we end up getting the mind and subconscious mind creating things we really don't want. That is the problem of many aspirants which the Master himself has clarified in many of his articles. However I thought I can share some practical points in this regard. If we don't get our mind and subconscious mind to focus on what we want, we will surely end up getting what we do not want during meditation in particular and life in general. Most of us do not control our mind, nor do we instruct our subconscious mind because we do not control our thoughts; it would not be wrong if I say that most of us are not even aware of the thoughts we have everyday. One more important factor is we do not seem to choose our beliefs. Everyone wants to be successful and happy but we do not have thoughts that reflect success and happiness. Very few of us choose our thoughts and majority of sadhakas, leave their mind on autopilot accepting whatever thoughts it conjures up and then they begin to worry about them. Master only advised us to ignore the thoughts. If we do that there is no problem. Instead we seem to believe in the reality of these thoughts and wail over such a situation. What we should believe is the Master whose presence is felt as awareness of nothing and many a time non awareness of anything. When we become aware we do not give importance to the presence of the Master by believing him, instead we give importance to the unwanted thoughts and believe in their reality. We thus do not choose our beliefs based on experience and instead we merely accept what our minds tell. 'Mind is its own enemy' and Lord Krishna was emphatic about this as we see in the Bhagavad Gita. Master also says this but adds the same mind has to be used to control the mind. When we hear sadhakas who are intent on being successful in their spiritual pursuit and try to analyse their thoughts we find them entertaining thoughts which are in their very nature exact opposite of what they seek. While they want to be successful they do not show any evidence of having thoughts and beliefs that promote their cause. Whatever we want to we can surely achieve if we have a belief system that corresponds to our goals. Master has suggested that three faiths or beliefs are a must for successful completion of our spiritual journey. The first belief or faith that he listed relates to faith in one self that he can achieve the goal. If we have faith that we will get a proper and competent guide we will surely get one. This is what he said when he stated the guru will come to the doors of a sincere seeker. This faith is a must to succeed in sadhana. It would be erroneous to doubt ones deservancy for realisation not withstanding what the Sanyasins have said. The main point for focus now is how to keep our belief system in alignment with the goals we want to accomplish.As Master has stressed we should be clear about the goal from the beginning. Master has emphasised the need fix up the goal first. "It is very essential for every one to fix his thought at the very outset, upon the goal which he has to attain so that his thought and will may pave his way into it." Having fixed the goal of attainment of the highest good, we should really believe that we can accomplish the task and reach the goal. If this clarity is not there from the beginning and we have belief systems that work for other goals we should change our belief systems accordingly and change to the desired belief systems. We cannot while pursuing one goal seek the rewards of another. To change a belief system that is not in congruence with our goal we have to analyze our thoughts. We need to list all the thoughts and beliefs that we have about achieving that goal. For example: if we want to make speedy progress in spiritual life we should list first why we think we cannot make such a progress and what is the cause of this lack of faith in making speedy progress. We need to change our notions and thoughts to correspond with what we want. This can be done by persistent efforts and by regular monitoring of our thoughts and beliefs and making amendments whenever required. If we want to achieve success in our endeavour then we have to create thoughts and beliefs that will allow us to achieve the goals. We can think of our mind as a station that sends out energy signals: these energy signals are our thoughts and beliefs. These energy patterns are picked up by our subconscious mind. It then works out and creates situations, circumstances, and events to help us achieve whatever our thoughts and beliefs seek. It also attracts the people to us and guides us to the people who can help us achieve our goals. The subconscious does not distinguish between what is good and bad for us: it simply acts on our instructions. Those instructions are our energy signals which are as we mentioned earlier our thoughts and beliefs. So while we may want to achieve realisation, if we don't believe that we can and if we regularly maintain that notion either as a mark of humility or fear of incapacity that we can not achieve the same we should know we are instructing our subconscious to create situations for us that will not enable us to achieve our goals. This is why it is so important to eliminate negative thinking and create a positive thinking pattern in spirituality. It is in this context we should understand the value of being happy under all circumstances. Nitya santushti is a necessary attitude for spiritual progress. It becomes clear that if we want to achieve our goal and live the life of natural cooperation that we want we have to send the right messages to our subconscious mind. It is a matter that is not readily acceptable to us because this appears to be naive and simple. But that is the method suggested by our Master. Many persons changed their lives and achieved perfection in their life based on these principles. If we examine whether the entertaining patterns of negative thinking is helping us we find that it does not. That type of defeatist mentality enables only to get defeated. When we get calmness and peace during the meditation if our attention goes to these states of divinity we progress faster. If instead we complain about the thoughts of no consequence that visited us during meditation and feel discouraged, the result also would be disagreeable and many times disastrous. If such negative thinking pattern got reflected too often negative thinking pattern will start shaping our life. The importance of having one method, one master and absolute faith in our own deservancy to reach the goal cannot be over emphasized in sadhana. These statements of the Master are based on very sound principles of the science of mind. |