The Mind

Adi Sankara was walking through the market place with his disciples.

They saw a man dragging a cow by a rope.

Sankara told the man to wait and asked his disciples to surround them.

“I am going to teach you something” and continued...“Tell me who is bound to whom?

Is the cow bound to this man or the man is bound to the cow?

The disciples said without hesitation, “Of course the cow is bound to the man!

The man is the master. He is holding the rope. The cow has to follow him wherever he goes.

The man is the master and the cow is the slave.”

“Now watch this”, said Sankara and took scissors from his bag and cut the rope.

The cow ran away from the master, and the man ran after his cow.

“Look, what is happening”, said Sankara “Do you see who the Master is?

The cow is not at all interested in this man. The cow in fact, is trying to escape from this man.”

This is the case with our MIND. All the non-sense that we carry inside is not interested in us.

WE ARE INTERESTED IN IT, we are keeping it together somehow or the other. We are going crazy trying to keep it all together under our control.

The moment we lose interest in all the garbage filled in our head, and the moment we understand the futility of it, it will start to disappear. Like the cow, it will escape and disappear.”

We can allow disappearing, all the unwanted things in our mind and feel relaxed.

THE POWER OF THOUGHTS

One day, a yogi and his disciple arrived to the big city. They had no money with them, but they needed food and a place to stay. The disciple was sure that they were going to beg for their food, and sleep in the park at night."There is a big park not far from here. We can sleep there at night", said the disciple. "In the open air?" 

Asked the yogi."Yes", responded the student.The yogi smiled and said: "No, tonight we are going to sleep in a hotel and eat there too".The student was amazed. "How?""Come and sit down", said the yogi.

They both sat down on the ground and the yogi said:"When you focus your mind intently on any subject, it comes to pass."

The yogi closed his eyes and started to meditate with full concentration. After about ten minutes he got up and started to walk, with his disciple following him. They walked through several streets and alleys, until they arrived to a hotel.

"Come, let's enter inside", the yogi said to his disciple.

They just set foot in the entrance, when a well-dressed man approached them.

"I am the manager of this hotel. You look like traveling swamis and I believe you have no money. Would you like to work in the kitchen, and in return I'll give you food and a place to stay?"

"Fine", responded the yogi.

The disciple was perplexed and asked the yogi: "Did you use any magic? How did you do that?"

The yogi smiled and said, "I wanted to show you how the power of thoughts works. When you think with full and strong concentration about something that you want to happen, and your mind does not resist the subject of your thought, your thought materializes."

"The secret is concentrating, visualizing, seeing details, having faith and projecting mental and emotional energy into the mental scene. These are the general prerequisites. When your mind is empty from thoughts, and only one single thought is allowed to enter, it gains a very great power. One should be very careful with what he thinks. A concentrated thought is powerful, and exerts a very strong influence."

The disciple looked at his teacher and said: "I see that I have to sharpen my concentration in order to be able to use this power."

"Yes, this is the first step", responded the yogi.

Seeds of Thought

One of the most important principals for achieving success is to understand that your mind is like a garden bed where you cultivate and grow the seeds of thought. When you plant a positive seed of thought in your mind and nurture it carefully, it germinates and grows until it leads you to take action. As soon as you begin acting on your idea, your seed of positive thought becomes a seedling of positive action.

If you continue to feed and encourage this seedling, it gradually develops into a tree of positive habit. Once this habit has become solid and immovable, it is then only a matter of time before it blossoms to produce the fruits of success.

However it is important to be aware that the garden of your mind does not discriminate between positive and negative seeds of thought. A negative seed of thought planted within your mind often leads you to take negative actions. These actions gradually develop into negative habits that will inevitably produce the fruits of failure.

When you understand that your thoughts lead to actions and your actions develop into habits and that it is your habits that determine your results in life, then you’ll appreciate why it’s so important to be careful about the seeds of thought that you plant within your mind.

One of the real secrets of success is to become a watchful caretaker over the garden of your mind and make sure that you only plant and cultivate thoughts that will develop into the positive habits necessary for making your dreams a reality.

So what does this mean in the real world?

It means that you should carefully monitor the thoughts that you are planting within your mind each day. Whenever you catch yourself planting or nurturing a negative thought, make the conscious decision to uproot and discard it.

So today I’d like to encourage you to become a watchful caretaker of your mind. Whenever you identify a seed of negative thought, uproot and discard it. Remember, it is much easier to uproot a seed of negative thought than it is to chop down a tree of negative habit that has taken root over many years. By planting and cultivating seeds of positive thought, you will set in motion a truly remarkable process. In the same way that a tiny acorn develops into a mighty oak tree, your positive seeds of thought will germinate into the actions and habits that will ultimately lead you to success.