Are You A Positive Thinker?
“The mind is such a thing that it can make heaven out of hell and hell out of heaven,” remarked William Blake. The state of our mind determines the state of our life. We live with our minds lifelong. So it is vital for us to learn to tap the power of the mind.
Central to mind management are intelligence and vigilance. All the sacred scriptures caution us to not succumb to the mind’s shortsighted urges for instant pleasure or relief. The Bhagavadgita, the essence of all Vedic wisdom, explains that the best way to deal with the mind is to treat it as a person different from ourselves. We need to critically examine its ideas, which are often detrimental to our longterm selfinterest, just as we would examine the ideas given by someone else. But the mind proposes its thoughts, desires and emotions so subtly and irresistibly that we unthinkingly consider them to be our own and indiscriminately act on them. Only when faced with the consequences do we regret, “Why did I act so imprudently?” Needless to say, due to the mind.
Mind management is both a science and an art. We can classify the mind’s thoughts into four categories– positive (joy, peace), negative (hatred, envy), routine (steering our vehicle through the traffic, wearing our dress) and waste (daydreaming, needless nostalgia). Most of the thoughts our mind comes up with are either waste or negative, which results in absentmindedness or depression respectively. If we carefully watch our mind, we can reject the negative and waste thoughts – or, better still, replace them with positive. Many of us may be consciously or subconsciously attempting this. But we will frequently find ourselves acutely bankrupt of positive thoughts, because often things do go wrong and people do behave unreasonably, and our mind tends to glue on the negativity around us.
and waste thoughts. As we practice chanting, we will find a flood of love, peace, joy and wisdom washing away all the negativity from the mind. Millions of people worldwide have found the mahamantra Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare especially empowering in harnessing the mind. Even scientists have confirmed that chanting increases the endorphin level and decreases the
adrenaline level, which leads to peace of mind and overall good health. We can chant any name of God – Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Krishna – as per our choice and experience similar benefit. The advice of the great saint Srila Prabhupäda, founderacharya of ISKCON, can be our guiding light “Chant and be happy.”