The success of experiencing what I did and am trying to share with you through this post will depend on how detached you are from your mind. (In doubt? Read the post The Secret to (Infinite) Happiness)
Earlier I told you about the happiness you get out of the realisation that you are neither your body, nor your mind, and that how your body or mind feels is not how you feel. There we talked about detaching your mind from yourself, and not letting your mind influence you.
But today we are advancing to the next step. Controlling your mind
We often find ourselves indulging in pleasures (what saintly people call worldly pleasures). And most often we find that something in us does not want us to do that. Let it be watching television on the day before your exams, or having a deadline closing in and still finding time for everything else but the project, or knowing that you have to exercise for a healthy life, but still in the bed every morning; the times when you say “I couldn’t resist”
What was it that you couldn’t resist on those occasions? The desire in your mind.
Until you learn how to control your mind, true happiness can never be achieved.
And this ability, the ability to control your mind is very difficult to acquire, unless you are willing to train it for hours and hours. (In saintly terms, prayer or meditation)
But I just found a short-cut.
Let’s start it straight away. (Works well if there is anything you have been postponing)
Find a disgusting task, completing assignments, learning, reading, exercising (these will turn to be fun later, as I will show you).
Try to do it now.
Your mind is telling you not to do it.
Try to do it. Mind fighting. You try. Mind. You. Mind. >><< egh… dishyum… dishyum… ><
Don’t let mind take over you. Control your mind. Teach it that you are the master and it your slave.
Make it do what you want.
Now, the first task is the only difficult task. If you can do this by brute force over your mind, you are successful. Everything else is easier.
The moment you finish the first task something in you starts working. You feel a lot satisfied, confident,…
These are the symptoms that mind has accepted you as its master.
If nothing happened it is because you did the task through compromise with your mind. You told your mind to remain silent for a few minutes, while you finish the task. Mind will step aside, and, after you finish the task, take over again. That is not the way. Tell the mind first hand that you decide what to do, and that mind can only accept what you decide. Then do the task. And even after the task, you will remain the master.
Now, the satisfaction, the pleasure you just had, remember it. Just remember how happy you feel when you are in control of yourself (and not your mind). Don’t forget that ever.
(If you can, read the rest of this post only later. Though nothing is going to happen even if you read it now, it helps you better to take the control of your mind, if you read it later.)
_______________________________________________________
If you are like me, your mind will regain its authority within 2 hours of completing the first task.
It will hold a diplomatic conversation with you. Mind: “Hey! I accept defeat, you are my master. Will you please let me enjoy for an hour?” It will humbly request you. And you will let it. But the moment you do that mind will be back in power. So, what to do now?
Actually you shouldn’t have allowed the mind even a moment. The more freedom you give your mind, the more it will take control of you. But still, you got trapped. Now how do you bounce back? Simple. Remember the pleasure you had when you had mind under your control? Yes, that pleasure of satisfaction and the feel of control (far better than even OP :D). Remember it. Savour its sweetness. So you have two pleasures waiting for you, one silly, fragile pleasure and the other everlasting, supreme pleasure.
Remember it and fight your mind. Lo! Your control is back with you. And don’t lose it to mind ever again.
Just go in full control of your mind for a day or two.
And when you are pretty sure that you have your mind under your control, let it have some fun, still under your control. Some controlled entertainment. For an hour or so. And every otherwise gruelling thing you do, command the mind to treat that it is fun.
The mind is a great servant but a horrible master
And when letting your mind have fun be cautious. Our mind is so tricky that sometimes it will make us think that we are in control while actually it is in control. This can be called pseudo control. But you can easily identify whether you are having pseudo control or actual control. Just command your mind to do something, if it obeys you are in control, and if it doesn’t you’ll have to start taming it again.
So, once you have tamed your mind, like a good pet dog, it will obey whatever you say. And may be if our mind does have some secret potentials like the saints say, then some day we will be able to bend spoons.
And when you are in complete control of your mind, then you are in control, you are God, the Almighty.
Enjoy the bliss.