Acharya Mahapragya Blog
Whoever breathes, lives. One has to live by breathing, eating and drinking; but living like this has no great value. Living a good life is valuable. Who can live a good life? Whoever has peace and strength, can live a good life. Both are necessary. Lack of either of the two will create a stressed mind.
A sister, once, asked me for a solution to the lack of peace in her mind. On asking the reason, she elaborated, “two sons have passed away. There is one daughter-in-law. People talk a lot of nonsense.” I said, if you live on the basis of what people say, then you can never live with peace. In this world, there exist different kinds of people with different beliefs, imaginations and thought processes. So, if we start living on the basis of these diverse set of notions, we cannot even think about living in peace.
Self-Confidence
The first principle of living with strength and peace is self-confidence. We must have confidence in ourselves. The problem is that we have more faith upon others than us. Maybe that’s why people are fed with information about what others speak of you? What the other says, says. What do you talk to your own self?
Others talking about you is their own desire. It is possible that what you do, is not liked by someone. Everybody has a unique thought process. There is so much diversity and freedom in terms of thinking, that nobody can be bound. If we see ourselves on the basis of other’s mindsets, then we can never live with peace.
A weak and fearful person gets influenced by small instances and thus, living with peace is impossible for him. Only people with a strong mind can save themselves from the impressions of events and people’s chatter. The principle of evolution is that only the strong one survives in this world. Only the one, who has faith in themselves, is the strong one. Therefore, tools, through which a strong mind can be achieved, must be found for obtaining peace.
The Truth Of Our Society
People who rely on others for their work and goals, can not be strong. Relying on others for your work can never get it accomplished. No matter how close a supporter, their help can only work to benefit when one has faith in themselves. The most important thing is to have faith in yourself.
Society has a problem- one’s capabilities, character and what he must be doing are all decided on the basis of what others have to say. Even in the context of a party, clothes which are liked by others, are worn. It is seen which designs are liked by people. One’s own likes and dislikes do not matter, a dress should just be liked by others. If somebody says something is good, it is good and if someone says something is bad, it is bad even if it is good or right as per your own perception.
I asked several people- why do you do this to yourself? They tell me - “even we know that this is not right. But what to do? If we do not do this, then others won’t let us fit in. We won’t be able to walk with our heads held high.”
Do Not Become Puppets
This means that a person is a puppet of other’s hands- a toy that can be driven wherever they want. Becoming a puppet is playing with your own life. Only a person who is devoid of confidence can let such a thing happen to him/her. A confident person will not think what others have to say. She/he will do what (s)he has to do.
First, one must think thoroughly about the decision they have to make; think about the pros and cons of an action and decide with proper care. But after deciding thoughtfully, do what you have to do. Then, you must not stop. What others will say must be ignored.
This is my own experience. His holiness, Acharya Tulsi oversaw a lot of changes in our commune of munis. He, first, thought through and after thinking, he concluded that certain traditions must be changed as they do not hold any meaning in this day and age. If we have done something after thinking over it thoroughly, then what others say does not hold any meaning and doing something without thinking through, has no meaning in itself.
Save Yourself From A Crazy Nature
The second principle of living with strength is saving oneself from a nature of craziness. Some people build something bad with their own imagination. There is nothing real to it. The mind only imagines and generally, such pieces of imagination are not good. Many people have this habit. Such a habit does not let life become strong.
Another problem is doubts. Some people carry a lot of doubts and come up with thoughts such as these- Several days have passed, there has been no news. What could have happened? This is the weakness of our own mind. The mind is so weak that it cannot stand any doubt. Lots of doubts and imaginary talk in the mind makes a man weak.
The practice of meditation is valuable because it teaches one to be in the present moment. When we learn to live in the present moment, then unnecessary imaginary ideas can be stopped. These unnecessary imaginations make one weak from the inside and the outside, both. The meaning of strength implies the strength to stop one’s flow of imagination.
Let the discriminatory power remain awake- this imagination should be developed while this should not be developed further. As soon as a bad imaginary idea appears in your mind, it must be thrown out.
Why Does A Mind Break?
Bad imaginations and fear weaken the mind. When the mind is weak with fear and imaginations how can you talk about peace? The mind must be saved from thoughts that weaken it. If we can do that, the mind will automatically be peaceful and when the mind is at peace, it can stand any amount of difficulties and troubles. A strong new piece of cloth can withstand the impact of a stone thrown on it from above but if the cloth is of poor strength, even a little impact can tear it away. Similarly, if our mind is weak, even a small problem can make the mind very unrestful.
Thus, in reality, no incident creates sorrow. A weak mind creates sorrow. We often think along the line that such a major incident has happened, that the mind has become so much at unrest. We forget that there is another incident creator in between, which is the mind. Every event is filtered through the mind. If the mind is powerful, then it can even turn a troublesome incident into a small one.
The fact is that we have no control over events. But we can surely make our minds so strong that no incident can steal the innate peace within us or at least an incident should not have such an effect that life becomes burdensome.
Will You Survive?
In the olden days, a prince used to behave with cruelty towards everyone. The public was troubled by him. In a monarchy, the king is the most powerful. Complaints of the prince’s cruelty reached the king. He was the only son of the king. The king got in a dilemma. He thought to himself, he won’t listen to me; let me go to our Guru. He will definitely put him on the right road. So, the king went to the Guru and told him, “Maharaj! My son has a bad habit. He behaves very cruelly with others. Please teach him a lesson.”
The saint assured him and made a plan. The saint accompanied the king, the prince and guards to the forest, indicated to pluck a few neem leaves and, asked the prince to consume them. The prince’s tongue caught the bitter taste. The prince disliked it but since eating the leaves was his Guru’s instruction, he didn’t say anything. As per the plan, the saint, the king and the prince went to the forest, the next day too but the tree from which the prince had consumed the leaves was nowhere to be seen. The prince told everybody -“Gurudev! I had the tree cut.”On being asked for the reason, the prince replied- “this was a very bitter tree. What is the use of such bitterness? Thus, I had it cut.” On this, the saint said- “you did a good job. A bitter thing should not stay in the world. Even your behaviour is bitter. In the public’s view, even you are bitter. So, if they also think like you, will you be able to survive?”
Strength, Peace, and Happiness
This saint’s nugget of wisdom completely changed the prince. Even if one nugget of wisdom touches you from within, life can be transformed. We must consider this seriously- that everyone wants to live with peace and happiness. Happiness comes with peace and peace comes with strength. The three are inter-related. If the mind is not peaceful, one cannot appreciate a good thing that is in front of them.
Now, since peace is related to one’s state of mind in a big way, the source of strength is one’s emotions or a control on their passions. In psychology, it is called emotional development. The chief element that destroys one’s strength is emotional disturbances. All passions, be it anger, egoism, lust and desire, destroy one’s strength. So, in order to be powerful, controlling one’s passions, is very important.
Good Conduct v/s Miracles
There are two things in the world- good conduct and miracles. People like miracles even though there is nothing in them. Strength comes with good conduct. A person walking on water, is a miracle. Whoever sees somebody walking on water, will be surprised but what will the sight-seers gain out of this? Nothing! If you want to gain strength, then make your conduct pure. Good conduct is powerful and miracles are just show-off activities.
The worrisome question is what does a common man get with such miracles? Babas performing such miracles do get benefitted as they are worshipped. In the midst of their miracle shows, they take advantage of people’s faith and in the process, obtain monetary benefits.
But if good conduct comes in life, strength comes. Even if one learns to focus the mind for five minutes, the mind’s willpower and strength will increase. If we spend our life by witnessing miracles, nothing will really come in our hands. These are two roads. Which road do we want to take is in our own hands. To make the mind strong and powerful, we must choose the road of good conduct. The question is: how can we make our conduct better? For this, we must develop pure emotions, continuously. Pure emotions create good conduct in one’s mind and thus, create strength.
The Solution is Within
To become sufficiently strong, an important thing is to find the solution to your problem, yourself. Problems come in everyone’s life. Nobody can assume that no problems will ever come in their life. There has been no person on this Earth, who has not faced any problems. It’s a principle of this world that a person has to face some or the other difficulty. The question is what can be done? Spirituality commands that one must find the solution to their problems, themselves.
There is a famous sutra which says it succinctly- अप्पणासच्चमेसेज्जा।
This means- find your own truth. The truth found by others cannot be much useful to the other person. I myself think that whatever I am telling you, is not directly useful to you. Unless you do not have your own experiences and put in your own efforts, how will my saying anything will help? If you make my truth, your own, then you will see results. Otherwise, this knowledge will be just like a loan, which you will have to return someday.
Unless we do not have the mindset of finding solutions to problems, ourselves, no power in this world can solve our problem. For instance, somebody, who is suffering from the problem of obesity, can thin down only after their own self-efforts. The person will have to change their diet, keep a control on their diet and exercise, themselves. Nobody else can do it for them. If a problem could be solved on rent, rich people would never have to face any problems.
Solution to a problem is not anywhere outside but is within us- the day, we firmly place our faith on this belief, we will be accomplished with strength and peace, throughout our lives.