Random thoughts-A Struggler

However big we grow, we never cease to be a struggler. Life is the continuous stage of progress and we are learning new things everyday. A good student is one who realizes that he is ignorant and is willing to learn. The day, he thinks that he knows everything; that will be the last day of his creative mind. A good student is one who is able to use his intellect to discriminate the right from wrong. He is able to use his intellect to let go of things that are not important to him, he should be able to decide when to make contact between senses and intelligence and nurses a desire for liberation. If we are living in any urban state, we are likely to have many visitors. But what is our attitude towards our visitors? We are very hospitable. We go out of our way to be kind to them; we take them out for shopping, movies and try to accommodate them, sometimes beyond our limits. Do we really have to go to that extreme and inconvenience our self? Do we need to shelf our own duties for our guests? Or, on the other hand, sometimes we think they are invading our private space. We are afraid that if we are nice to them, they might stay for ever. We start being rude to them and spoil the relationship. This is situation when we need to discriminate where we can draw the line. We have intellect to make proper discrimination and make proper choice. It is no use going for instant pleasure. We must have courage to give up what is not important. We have to focus on waste disposal of unimportant things. We have intellect to discriminate right from wrong. If we clutter our life with too many unwanted things then we get restless. It is believed that Eisten had only four identical suits in his ward robe. He did not want to waste even one moment in deciding what to wear. But what do we do? We have so much greed that we want to buy everything that we see our friends buying. We have no room to store and we keep cluttering our house with unwanted things. How many shoes can we wear on our two feet? Do we really need hundred pairs of shoes? And for what? There are some, who will borrow jewelry from their friends to wear it for an occasion. Why? Do we really need to impress people? If we don’t have, it okay not to have, why can’t we be content with whatever we have? We sacrifice our own happiness by living the ways of the world. The true happiness lies in being contend with whatever we have. Aping others is sure to make us miserable. We have to learn the art of self control and mind control. We should be able to control our emotions, our desires, anger, and jealousy. These emotions are killers of our happiness. We have to seek the higher goal of liberation and we should be able to differentiate the freedom from bondage of unimportant desires.

Random thoughts on heart and mind

There a direct link between the state of heart and state of mind. Whenever we are disturbed and agitated, we cannot concentrate and we lose interest in everything. Our mind is all the time preoccupied with worry and we cannot find solutions. We have no interest in food, play or any sensual activities. What do we do? Will talking to people help? I think nobody can help us. People might be sympathetic to us, try to give us solutions and might even try to pacify us but they cannot help us overcome our agitation. Only we can help ourselves. First and foremost, it is important that we don’t expect help and learn to deal with it. There are many things that we cannot change, so it is better to accept it. We can try our bit to change it but that is all we can do. We cannot expect others to do what we think is right. For example, there is so much corruption around us. Everybody is out to cheat. They expect bribery and will make things difficult for us if we do not oblige. So what do we do? If bribery and corruption is against our principle, we stick to it and not encourage it and face the discomfort. We can do our bit by standing firm by our principles and face the consequences. But can we stop our friends to stand by our principles? No. We cannot. They have to make their choice. Every body has their own intellect and it depends how they train their intellect. If they make wrong choices, it is because their intellect is weak or it is sleeping. They have to awaken their intellect so that their mind decides what is right. We all have to do our own obligatory duties; we cannot expect fruits for every action that we make, but what needs to be done, should be done. If our concentration is shifted from our duty to do what is necessary, to expecting fruit for our action, the quality of our work will suffer. For maintaining a healthy balance between our mind and heart, it is important to do what is right and not agitate our intellect by compressing it against our senseless desires.