Attach to the Higher – II

A potent element for building up the mind’s strength is habit. Often, we create—albeit unintentionally – only negative patterns of thinking and behaviour. To reverse this, constant and conscious effort must be made to cultivate positive and effective habits of self-mastery. Regularly keeping the direct company of sages, or their indirect company through books and discussions, is an efficacious way of keeping the mind in check. (And because of the very subtle level on which it works, the effects of this method actually last a lifetime, even if they are not apparent on various occasions.) Indeed, the mind can be like a dangerous fast-flowing river, shattering huge boulders in its path. Strong negative tendencies can even make the mind torrential, as it were. Hurtful words are then spoken, or wrong actions taken, or poor decisions made, or good opportunities lost… in short, things don’t go the optimum way. The important role of habits—mental habits, in particular—becomes all the clearer when we consider how frequently and excitedly we devour popular self-help books such as ‘Effective Habits of Success’, and yet no substantial change takes place in us… because the mind is so fully ‘inhabited’ by the past! It has yet to learn to simply drop its weaknesses.Thus, the mind requires the power of positive and dynamic habits; the ‘clean fuel’ of constant affirmation and reaffirmation; it needs the unadulterated intrinsic peace of a mantra to purify it. One can choose any mantra—the crest jewel Gayatri Mantra, or the Mula Mantra from the Guru Granth Sahib, or Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram…. Chanting one’s favoured mantra with regularity and dedication soon becomes a practice that quietens and at the same time charges the mind.

Attach to the Higher – II

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