Choose to Live Life in Sheer Bliss

Consider the image of any regular person living this planet. Their life is their family, their work, their dreams, and above all their worries. One sees people proudly proclaiming, that they have a thinking mind, which is generating thoughts by the second. But the question you need to ask yourself is, are you generating these thoughts or is your mind generating them. Many of us fail to distinguish the subtle difference between who “you” are and who “your mind” is. The first sign of caution is when you fail to carry out this distinction.


Do you identify with any of the following?
• My mind always generates a variety of thoughts.
• Most of these thoughts are involuntary and beyond my control.
• Some of them are good and some bad both generated due to the environment external to me.
• While I enjoy and nurture the good thoughts, the bad thoughts bog me down and I am unable to do anything about it until they get resolved or die down themselves.

If the answer to majority of the above is a yes, then “you” are a slave of your thoughts or better said your thoughts have complete control over you and has the capability to govern your mood. Remember incoherent collection of thoughts in your mind is not a symbol of a thinking mind. It’s a symbol of an uncontrolled mind. Let’s take an example of your hand. It does not continue moving when you have finished bowling a cricket ball or when you finish waving goodbye to your friend where as your hand stops moving once these activities complete. The brain controls this activity. But who controls the activities of the mind. Who would stop the mind from uncontrolled thinking? That’s what we are trying to achieve here.
So the question remains how do I free myself from this rut of uncontrolled thinking?

Here are some three simple tips that worked for me.

1. The first step is to be aware that you are separate from your mind. The best way to do this is to constantly put yourself into a habit of watching what your mind is doing. Initially it may sound a bit weird and even foolish. We have many occasions that can be used to build this habit, our most hated moments, when we are driving alone, driving and stuck in traffic jams, waiting for a friend or acquaintance, waiting at airports, bus stands or railway stations, long winding travels, the possibilities are enormous. In case these locales are too disturbing sit in a quiet room and watch your mind.

2. Once you are aware what the mind is doing, the next step is to pay attention to the contents of what the mind is processing. This step is distinct from the first step which just concentrates on watching the actions of the mind. Be aware of each thought as they come in, watch as they linger on and multiply, watch them as they die down or surge. At every stage of this step you should be aware of all the thoughts that are crossing your mind

3. Now that you are aware of all these thoughts, start off by segregating the good and bad thoughts. The interesting part is that there are no good or bad thoughts. It’s our reaction to each thought that makes it good or bad. For a human mind if the reaction to a particular thought makes us happy then it’s a good thought and if it makes us sad then it’s a bad thought. For the ease of writing and understanding, let’s still call these as good or bad thoughts. We obviously don’t want to remove good thoughts from our mind, as for the bad thoughts there are 2 ways to work around them.

a. One way is to watch the thought that invokes a sad reaction within you. Be aware of that thought, identify with it, watch it grow and fall. The power of this process is that the moment you become aware of a thought that makes you sad, and watch its rise and ebb, it starts getting weak. If you are able to do this replace this thought with a good thought, now that’s your key to bliss.

b. The second way and one that worked for me, is to write down that thought which invokes a bad reaction within you. The act of simply writing down this thought makes it weak. The good part of the writing process is that you need not replace the bad thought with a good one. The moment you write the precise thought, it vanishes. In short the moment you associate with a bad thought either by watching it intensely or by writing it , the thought dies off.

By consistently practicing these 3 steps you can rid yourself of what we call “persistent worrying” and so called uncontrolled thinking of the mind. With time we would be able to gain mastery over our minds and eventually replace the uncontrolled thinking of the mind with a free thinking mind. A free thinking mind, constantly searches for thoughts that depress us, and replaces such thoughts with nice and pleasant thoughts , leading to a an enriched life of sheer bliss.