I am sitting in my garden next to one of the ponds under the green canopy of trees. I watch the Koi fishes swim around. They collect around the waterfall falling from the rockery next to the pond. I marvel at their vivid colors as I throw food into the pond and watch them explode in a feeding frenzy.
The tangential light of the winter sun is making the colorful seasonal flower beds shine out with brilliance. The lush green lawn still sports shiny dew drops. I watch as bees collect nectar and pollen from the flowers. The flowers have beautiful patterns on their colorful petals. I wonder who designs them.
The eco-system attracts a whole lot of birds. The avian visitors have their visiting times. The parrots are the first to arrive in the morning. They sit on the branches of the tall trees and announce their presence with loud calls. The crows come in next. Soon the sparrows follow. These little clowns are dawn to dusk entertainers. As the day warms up, the mynahs appear. They announce their arrival with loud twangs and melodious notes. These brown birds have yellow beaks and legs. They march up and down the lawn in their yellow stockings with true military gait, catching insects.
I am blissfully happy and content watching nature unravel its wonders around me. I look around and pray silently thanking God for the beautiful morning.
As I sit there my mind drifts and, unknown to me, like shadows worries start creeping in. As time ticks by I become more and more oblivious to my wonderful surroundings. Suddenly I realize I am tense. I try to push out all worries and relax. I try to trace back my thought process to the point where the “virus of worry” infected my mind. What started it?
I start wondering how thought processes affect our moods. Can we control them? From where do they originate? What causes something from the past to suddenly surface in our mind and hijack the entire thought process? Can we store only good thoughts in the active portions of our brain, pushing the dark ones deep beyond our mental horizons so that they can never surface again? With practice is it possible? If we achieve this feat we shall always be happy. The million dollar questions is: Is it possible?
I recollect a pravachan in which a brahma kumari had so convincing illustrated, in so many steps, how our thought processes affect our behavior and how our behavior affects others and ultimately affects our own destiny. However, even the enlightened brahma kumari was not very convincing when matters came to controlling thought processes.
My mind turns to a good friend of mine who had spent her growing up years in our city and presently lives elsewhere. When she was here for a school alumni meet someone suggested she should visit the house where she had lived earlier. She flatly refused. She said she would rather treasure her old memories than go and see what the place looked like at present.
I made a note of the profound truth in her seemingly casual remark. She meant we must fill our minds with jewels from the past and not with sadness and yearning. She perhaps meant no memories are better than sad memories. She treasured good memories from the past and would not allow them to turn into sad ones.
Get to think of it, life gives us both good and bad experiences. Our happiness or sadness depends on what we treasure and what we push away. Bitter people collect bad thoughts, sadness, injustice etc. While the happy ones collect happy moments and treasure them.
It is tough but we must reject and push away negative thoughts welling up from the past and forcefully turn our minds to the wonderful gifts God has given us.
There are too many sour, negative people in our society today who poison their surroundings with their negativity. They are the people who are not thankful for the good things they receive. The good is taken as a right. However, they hold a king size grudge against one and all for whatever they could not achieve. They have a museum of sad memories in their minds. Let us collect jewels of hope and happiness. Let us smile and put smiles other faces around us.
Rajesh Chaubey, Guest Contributor, PatnaDaily.Com
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