" The 'No!' mind is agitated, doubting, and miserable. "The 'Yes!' mind is quiet, holistic, and joyful. 'Yes!' is an acknowledgment of knowledge". - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Today I would like you to ponder, What
do you think is the quality of your mind? Is it busy? Is it Still? Is it
ruffled? Is it restless? Is it Judgmental? Is it accepting? And most important,
do you control it or vice versa? Can you imagine the quality of your life if
you have a negative, restless, and agitated mind? or a volatile, volcanic one?
On the other hand, imagine if it were like a serene, sparkling lake. More than
anything else, it’s the quality of your mind and how much it controls you that
determines the quality of your life.
Here's
an interesting exercise: Just stop reading for a moment and check how many
breaths you're taking per minute. (One inhalation and one exhalation count as the single breath). Make them normal ones, not attempting to lengthen or shorten
them. When you take 18 breaths per minute, you have 120 thoughts per second. If
you take 12 a minute, this number falls to 20.
From
time immemorial, two of the most crucial functions of the breath have been to
support you and come to your aid whenever necessary. When you face danger, it
quickness and becomes shallow to supply you with the oxygen you need to fight or
flee from the calamity. When the crisis has passed the breath slows down. In
our stressed and rushed lives today, our normal breath is fast and shallow. It
never slows down.
The number of breaths you're taking per minute is a good indicator of your level of
stress. The optimum is from 11 to 12. If you're breathing faster, and most of us
are, your mind is cluttered with too many thoughts. That's why when you're
stressed you feel confused and unclear. You're unable to think straight. It's
the same when you're angry, you remain on high alert and so does your mind.
High brain activity isn't synonymous with clarity. You will never make the
right decisions in such a state.
Now,
what can you do to cultivate a smart, sparkling mind if you haven't already
done so?
What
would you do if you needed to de-stress, if you were really exhausted and had
to refresh yourself, or if you had been working too hard? you would take a
break; you would stop the tiring activity for a while. You would switch off
your mobile mind if its battery is low to recharge it.
How
do you tell your mind to just shut down? When you try to do so, you ran into a
number of technical problems. It doesn't know how to do it. It doesn't listen to
you. And it doesn't want to because it would then have to relinquish control,
and that's frightening.
You
may have got a clue from the exercise referred to earlier. The simplest doorway
to enter the mind is the breath. Stop reading for a few minutes and do the exercise
in the next paragraph. Observe how you feel.
Just
start observing your breath. Concentrate on its inflow...the coolness as it enters
your nostrils. Follow it down your spine and then back up out the top of your
head...continue to so for a few minutes. Keep focused on it, you will be
surprised to realize that while you're noticing your breath, you have no
thoughts. They might interrupt but if you take attention back to the breath,
they are banished, your mind can do one thing at a time!
Think
about it: What a wonderful resource you have at your disposal to instantly calm
the mind! you can do it anyplace, anytime.
The mind is naturally inclined to dwell on the negative and we encourage it! often
you seek lots of information from it. Try altering them and observe the new
results. The very quality of your thoughts will begin to change.
"Life is in the breath therefore he
who half breathes, half-lives." - Tara Ward
very well written
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