Thought Control

I have been grumbling since ages that I need to learn the art of controlling my thoughts that I want to be the master of my thoughts that I do not want them to go astray and that I want them to go in a direction I want. That means even if I am sad or I have been hurt by some one, I want my mind to think what I want and not to be pinned-down by the saddening events and vice-versa, that is, if I am overjoyed by some event, I do not want my thoughts to go into an utopian world, rather I want them to stick to their roots.

So, Here are some viewpoints, I have gathered from internet about the art of ‘Thought Control’.

Thought control refers to the control of our thoughts while traveling through the different seasons of life. What is life? The first stage is ‘Cry’. It starts with a newborn baby craving for his mother’s milk. The baby has a subconscious mind. He cries for a simple reason. At this stage one has no control on thoughts. It’s a beautiful world out there.

The next stage is ‘Play’. As a kid one lives in the moment enjoying everything that one come across with true spontaneity. The mind is pristine. There is no need of thought control at this stage. However, as one grows older, life takes its turn and we have the next stages, School-> First love-> First date-> First Kiss-> First touch-> Ego-> Break up-> Regret. This is when one spends an inordinate amount of time either regretting something in the past or worrying about the future and spoils a perfectly lovely present.

We do not realize that what is past is over and we should move on. This type of activity is a waste and does not serve any purpose.

The key here is to control our thoughts so that we do not waste our mental breath on either things that have happened and cannot be changed or by worrying about events that may happen in the future. Rather we should spend the time in learning from the past or in planning for a brighter future.

Our minds come to each one of us with a fatigue limit. Our minds can handle only so much of worrying, regretting, hoping, anxiety etc. After that we are just exhausted and do not have energy to focus on issues or opportunities in the present.

Sometimes certain words or actions of others hurt us and tends to rankle in our minds. What happens after that is we spend our time reliving the situation and keep getting angrier by the moment. It is very essential that we break out of this cyclical thought process and move on in life. As difficult as it is, it definitely makes more sense to step back and look at the whole incident objectively and learn from it.

We then have to learn to consciously just “let go”. The ideal way to progress in life is to conserve our mental energies and focus fully on the task at hand. Our performance and the results will be far greater when we do not fritter away our energies on regrets, worries, and hatred and mind games.

This is the true secret of success. We need to be aware of the workings of our mind and manage it intelligently so that our energies are always channelized to opportunities that require our whole hearted attention.

We have to conserve our energy and follow the dictum, ‘When eating eat and when sleeping sleep’. We should neither be too overjoyed at good news nor feel down in the dumps when something bad happens.

All these sap our mental forces and there is no energy when it is most needed. This active thought control requires us to put our heart and soul into what we do by conserving our mental energies in order for us to succeed. Finally as one of my favorite physicist Sean Carroll of California Institute of Technology puts it “The past has happened and the future is up for grabs".