Mental Hygiene

 

by Smt. Mandira Lahiri

At this juncture of life my earnest desire is to become a better human being each day. My endeavor is to consistently work towards it. There are days when I feel very joyful and I know the reason for it is my own positivity. By now I know this for sure that the most important thing for my mental and physical well-being is shunning negativity. Through practice, the mind becomes peaceful for a while, then again plays truant. So, what should be done?

In one of his books Raman Maharshi says, ”The peace often gained must be remembered at other times. That peace is your natural and permanent state. By continuous practice it will become natural. That is called the ‘current’. That is your true nature.”

We should train our mind to see the good in everything, positivity is a choice. The happiness of our life depends on the quality of our thoughts.

Once when Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji was asked what was the secret of our happiness, his reply was— mental hygiene.

KV Raghupatti explains it well in ‘The Speaking Tree’ dated 16/12/23.

…. awareness of the mind can help us to be at peace with ourselves. Keeping an external vigil over emotions, feelings such as anxiety, fear, worry and thoughts. This endless watching checks the unnecessary flow of emotions, feelings and thoughts which come and go like clouds.

So, we see that being mindful of our thoughts also propels us towards positivity.

Excerpts from ‘The Speaking Tree’ dated 6/5/23 written by Pramod Pathak:  The story goes that the Buddha was on the verge of Nirvana, the final journey. It was unbearable for his disciples to imagine life without their Master, with whom they had spent several decades. As they were all crying at the very idea of the Buddha leaving them, Anand, the chief disciple, was called by the Master and asked, what was the reason for their sorrow. To this Anand broke down and said that since the Master was not going to be around to lead and guide them, disciples were expecting darkness to descend on them. It was the cause of great anguish and despair: who will now show them the light of life?  The Buddha heard him and smiled, and then in a deep voice he said: ‘Atma deep bhav’— be your own light.

This was the central theme of Buddha’s teachings. Find your own path, guide yourself with your own light. No one can enlighten you from within. In fact, being one’s own light is the essence of all teachings. But how to attain this, given the darkness and gloom people find themselves surrounded with.

For most of us this may be the biggest challenge. However, there is a need to understand that a Master can only show the path. The journey has to be taken by oneself. The very fact that those who lived with the Buddha for four decades felt the same predicament and had to be told to pursue their journey on their own, suggests how important it is to find one’s own path.

Mystic poet Kabir explains this in one of his couplets that says, “like oil in the sesame seed, and fire in the flint stone, your enlightenment is inside you.”

Excerpts from ‘The Speaking Tree’ dated 3/2/21 by Atul Sehgal:  The inner voice is unmistakably the voice of our master and the Divine mentor. He is engaged every moment in facilitating our welfare and progress. The means of such facilitation are often painful for us. But these are all purification processes. Our ultimate destination is divine bliss. To attain that we need to fulfill all our mundane desires or overcome them. And the Supreme helps us exactly in this process.  Armed with true knowledge and a healthy mind dwelling in a healthy body, we shall have nothing to fear. The inviolable system of retribution set in by our master is continually and inexorably purifying us and refining us, whatever we do or not do.

Someone once questioned Sri Raman Maharshi— How is the mind to be steadily kept right?  Maharshi’s reply — All living things are aware of their surroundings and therefore intellect must be surmised in all of them. At the same time, there is a difference between the intellect of man and that of other animals, because man not only sees the world as it is and acts accordingly, but also in his attempt to fulfill his desires he extends his vision far and wide and yet he turns away dissatisfied. He now begins to think and reason.

The desire for permanency of happiness and of peace bespeaks such permanency in his own nature. Therefore, he seeks to find and regain his own nature, i.e., his Self. That found, all is found.

Such inward seeking is the path to be gained by man’s intellect. The intellect itself realizes after continuous practice that it is enabled by some Higher Power to function. It cannot itself reach that Power. So, it ceases to function after a certain stage. When it thus ceases to function, the Supreme Power is still left there all alone. That is Realization; that is the finality; that is the goal.

Excerpts from ‘Science of Oneness’— Prajnanpurush Sri Sri Babathakur says — Mind is nothing but the reflection of the Self. The reflection cannot overcome the Self. That is why I tell you that you should remember alone your all-perfect One Self. You are not the mind, nor the intellect, they are nothing but the reflection of the same one Self-Consciousness.

If you think that you are mind/intellect and not Self, you will become a victim of the relative laws of Maya and will be embarrassed by the nature of mind. Mind cannot control itself and the Self does not require any control for Itself.

If anybody listens to my words attentively for at least half an hour, all his imaginary problems would pale into insignificance. You are verily the Divine-Self and none else. What more do you want? You gain nothing new; It is already with you.

We all immerse ourselves in the rigmarole of chores of our mundane lives but find it hard to extract a little bit of time for the nourishment of our higher selves.  We see that all great Men say the same thing about God nowhere outside. He is there with us at all time; we just have to look within. Constant remembrance of our Real Nature would help us to stay away from all the negativity and usher us into a domain of sheer bliss and Eternal Peace!  By doing so we will not only help ourselves, but also those who come in contact with us and make this world a better place to be in.