Control Your Mind

Control Your Mind

Man’s mind influences his body profoundly. If allowed to

function the viciously and entertain unwholesome thoughts, mind can cause disaster, can even kill a being; but it can also cure a sick body. When the mind is concentrated on right thoughts with right effort and understanding the effect it can produce is immense. A mind with pure and wholesome thoughts really does lead to healthy relaxed living.

   Buddha says: “No enemy can harm one so much as one’s own thoughts of craving, thoughts of hate,thoughts of jealousy and so on.”

   A man who does not know how to adjust his mind according to circumstances would be like a corpse in a coffin. Turn your mind to yourself, and try to find pleasure within yourself, and you will always find therein an infinite source of pleasure ready for your enjoyment.

   It is only when the mind is controlled and is kept to the right road of orderly progress that it becomes useful for its possessor and for society. A disorderly mind is a liability both to its owner and to others. All the havoc wrought in the world is created by men who

have not learned the way of mind control, balance and poise. Calmness is not weakness. A calm attitude at all times shows a man of culture. It is not too hard for man to be calm when things are favourable, but to be composed when things are wrong is hard indeed, and it is this difficult quality that is worth achieving; for by such calm and control he builds up strength of character. It is quite wrong to imagine that they alone are strong and powerful who are noisy, garrulous and fussily busy.

The Voice of Nature

For the sake of material gain modern man does not listen to the voice of nature. His mental activities are so preoccupied with his future happiness that he neglects the needs of his physical body and entirely forgets the present moment for what it is worth. This unnatural behaviour of contemporary man is that immediate result

of his wrong conceptions of World Order, of human life and its ultimate purpose. It is the cause of all the frustration, anxiety, fear and insecurity of our present times. One who really likes to have peace should not disturb another man’s freedom. It is a wrong method to seek happiness by disturbing and deceiving others.

   Abraham Lincoln, the renowned American President once said, “You can deceive some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you cannot deceive all of the people all of the time.”

   If man is cruel and wicked, always lives against the laws of nature and the cosmos; through his acts, words and thoughts, he pollutes the whole atmosphere. As a result of such misdeeds and thoughts, nature may not produce things which man requires for his living but instead man may be faced with epidemics and various kinds of disasters.

   If, on the other hand, man lives in accordance with this natural law, leads a righteous way of life, purifies the atmosphere through the merits of his virtues and radiates his loving kindness towards other living beings, he can change the atmosphere in order to

bring about better results for the happiness of man.

   You may be a very modern busy man, but don’t forget to spend at least a few minutes a day in reading some valuable books. This habit will give you a lot of relief and enable you to forget your worries and to develop your mind. At the same time you have to

remember that you have a religion also. Religion is for your own benefit. Therefore it is your duty to think about your religion and to spare a few minutes a day for the performance of your religious duties.

Mental Health and Criminal Tendencies

In relation to health, it is not T. B., or even cancer, that is the most alarming of the ailments of our age. T. B. is now almost under control, and there is every hope that a cure for cancer will be found in the near future. Actually, the most alarming of all is the prevalence and increase in all kinds of mental ailments and disturbances. We are forced to build more and more hospitals and institutions for the mentally sick and neuroses of various kinds. There are many more who do not receive any treatment, but who are in need of it badly.

   It may be asked why the criminal element within our society is mentioned in the same breath with the mentally afflicted. One of the positive and far-reaching results stemming directly from the research work of Freud is the recognition that criminals and delinquents are also mentally sick people, more in need of treatment than punishment. It is this liberal outlook on the problem that lays the basis of all “progressive” social reform, and opens up the way for reclamation rather than revenge

Know Thy Neighbour

We never see how other people live; we may not even know anything about the lives of people of different social levels from ourselves or of lesser or greater wealth. If we are healthy we cannot know what it is like to be sick and if we are invalids we cannot understand the energy of the strong.

   Such lack of experience makes for intolerance, because tolerance is born only of understanding and without experience there can be no understanding. Hence it is a good thing for us to get as wide an experience as is possible of all aspects of life, and especially to travel and let us make sure we do not always travel in luxury!

Man’s Unhappiness

Buddha taught that all man’s unhappiness comes from wanting the wrong sort of things, the pleasures that money can buy, power over other men, and, most important of all, to go on living forever after one is dead. The desire for these things makes people selfish,

he said, so that they come to think only of themselves, want things only for themselves, and not mind overmuch what happens to other people. And since they do not get all their wishes, they are restless and discontented. The only way to avoid this restlessness is to get rid of the desires that cause it. This is very difficult; but when a man achieves it, he reaches a state of perfection and calm. We really do not enjoy pleasures but were ourselves overcome by pleasures (i.e. by endless anxiety in seeking those pleasures all our energies were sapped). We suffer more than we enjoy in seeking the pleasures of this phenomenal world.