By Srinivas Arka
July 2017
The first thing we need to do is deal with our mind. We can avoid anything in the world, we can avoid anyone; however we cannot avoid our own mind. It's there constantly walking with us and living with us. It's there, relentlessly. Are we the mind? Are we fully the mind? How much of the mind are we?
When we say, “It's my mind”, what does it mean to us? So, where is that mind? We know we have a mind or we have minds. We know without our minds, we cannot be aware of our existence. We cannot respond to the world. So, the mind is essential for our comfortable, conscious existence, but the mind is not our total consciousness; it is a part of our deeper consciousness. It is not simply a serious subject matter. It is an exciting, adventurous, graceful journey into our inner world. We cannot recognize the world outside of ourselves without having the world within us. We cannot recognize and experience space outside without having some space within our own mind. It's a reflection of who we are and how the universe is, how nature is, and how the world is.
To my understanding, the world is alive as much as we are active and dynamic. In order to understand our presence, our existence, our nature, and our being, we need to understand something that is outside of ourselves because we cannot be here without the world, without this system and without nature.
We cannot achieve mental health without applying a spiritual approach. Each one of us knows deep down, no matter how sceptical or scientific we are, in our consciousness that we are not simply our bodies. We must have something beyond the tangible, physical, digital body - that is the infinite spirit or consciousness. We may use our own term to recognize it. The names are not the most important thing. The meanings that we hold in us are what matters the most. We can utter many words, but only when we mean it, do the words become magnetic, highly powerful, attractive and energetic.
In modern times, we are not spending enough time to understand and explore our bodiless presence. Dwelling in our minds alone will not help us experience this. Why do we need to experience our metaphysical presence or our spiritual presence? There's another body within the physical body that is more powerful than the physical body. We cannot understand anything without images and examples since that's how we have trained our brains. This is fine, but we have to progress emotionally. We should train the emotional mind or allow the emotional mind to grow along with the logical mind. We need balance. We are losing balance in modern times and becoming mostly mechanical, logical and rational.
Our curious mind wants to know who, what, where, why, when and how.
Mind is like a knife. If we mishandle a knife, not being aware of what we are doing, then we may cut our finger. Similarly, if we don't use the knife-like mind properly, it can hurt us. We have to handle our mind properly and in an affectionate manner, not aggressively. If we force our mind to do something, it's going to backfire on us. That's the nature of the mind. We must understand the nature of mind before doing anything with it. Inquiry is necessary, but not to the extent of losing peace, getting confused or becoming disturbed. We have to give some space and time for us to experience serenity and tranquillity within, experiencing bodilessness or the infinity of our inner spirit. Without that experience, it's difficult to overcome certain stresses and strains. Mind is powerful; everyone knows that. But we don't spend enough time understanding the nature of our own mind. Who am I? What can I do with my mind? What are the capabilities of the mind? How do I really explore the potentials of my mind? Thinking in this direction is beneficial in itself. Before we even get there, the benefits begin to emerge.
It’s my understanding that the first, powerful sense is the feeling sense. That's the inner sense. If we can deepen that feeling sense, if we can spend more time embracing that feeling sense, then that can definitely take us to the further powerful sense which is the intuitive sense - the sense of all senses.That sense is a huge resource within us. We can do so much with that sense.
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