Taming our mind..

Is there anyone, who is not thinking? We all are thinking all the time and we are all having different thoughts. Sometimes pleasant thoughts sometimes bad thoughts and so on. We are not able to control the thinking process. We are never aware of this thinking process. It wanders from one thing to another like a free horse. You might have noticed the fact, that if you control your thoughts it comes back to with a great strength. You may be aware of the thing, that your emotions are backed by your thoughts. This thinking process takes a lot of energy. That is the reason why, people engaged in works requires a lot thinking get tired easily that a person who is doing physical work. Is it healthy to have a lot of unnecessary thoughts? Surely no…..

How can we control our thoughts?

Controlling of mind doesn’t mean suppression of thoughts and it will never help us to control the mind. We can control our mind to some extend by giving it a task. Normally when we read news papers, external thoughts may not disturb the reading. But the thought comes back once we stop reading. The best way to keep our mind engaged is to let the mind observe what it is doing. It means observing our own thoughts. Once, when we look at our mind, we can see our mind becomes thoughtless for a moment. What ever the thoughts is, become aware of our thinking, observe our thoughts, like we watch a movie on a projected screen. This will help us to see our thoughts and we can avoid unhealthy thoughts and distractions. Let this be the first step on controlling the uncontrollable....

A story told by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

A group of traders were trying to cross a desert and they arrived at an oasis and they decided to take rest for the night.Everybody were so tired, even the camels. When it was time to secure the camels, they found one of the hitching pin to tie the camels was missing. They tied all the camels except one. None of them wanted to stay awake watching the camel neither loose it by letting him free. Then one of the men came and took the rope and after he went through all the motions of tethering the animal to a pin- an imaginary pin. Afterwards, the camel was bedded down and he was convinced that it was securely bound and everybody went to sleep.

Next morning, the camels were released. Everyone made ready to continue there journey,except the camel, which was tied in the imaginary pin. It refused to get up and move. Everybody did all the possible things, but the camel didn't moved. Meanwhile the man who did the trick last day realised the reason for the animal's obstinacy. He went to the camel's imaginary hitching pin and went through all the usual motions of untying the rope and releasing the camel. Soon it stood up without any hesitation believing that it was now free.

We all are like this camel. Even if we are free as the untied camel, we like to compare ourselves with others and this will limit our potentials. In our life we limit our capacities and potentials misconceptions as we believe we are bound firmly. We all are free to explore ourselves,and develop our potentials to its best.