You may have heard the expression that you are what you eat. Well actually that was wrong; you are what you think.
The next step on the path to happiness is to understand and really believe that it is possible and necessary to manage your thoughts rather than letting them control you.
In modern life we are subjected to constant bombardment from all directions of 'noise' from media in all its forms trying to get your attention. On top of this our own sub-conscious minds generate a constant chatter of conditioned and habitual thoughts that unchallenged will prevent you from ever having the chance to be there for and to experience the moment. You need to start to see that this is happening, and start to learn how to control your thoughts for yourself i.e. with your conscious mind. You will need to be able to turn off the constant chatter so that you can start to apply fresh conscious thoughts to every moment and start to really see what the real situations are for yourself; a process that is sometimes called seeing reality. One practice that is universally acknowledged to be helpful in training the mind in this way is meditation and I will cover this later in Chapter 27.
You need to start to be able to observe your mind using your pure consciousness, and see how it constantly offers up interpretations of external events which are often negative, or conditioned views and habitual reactions.
Do not believe everything you think.
Just because you have a thought – which is often a conditioned reaction anyway- IT DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE.
I really urge you to start to NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT YOU THINK.
Let me say it again; just because you think something does not make it true.
Choose your thoughts with care
You can and should choose your thoughts with care because what you think controls how you feel, and how you feel controls how you see the world, both overall and moment by moment.
People look for and want peace and harmony in their world. But you have to understand that you need to look inside yourself to find it. If you are at peace and relaxed on the inside then you will find that the outside world that you see will be more at peace.
You may not fully understand this yet but you really do create your life with your thoughts. Further what you are thinking now is creating your future life. Happiness does not come from events and what happens but from within. You really can decide in advance whether you are going to have a good or bad day and through your own thoughts and actions attract the commensurate result. Later when I cover the so called Law of Attraction I will show you how and why you attract your life with your thoughts, and how you can attract the life you wish for.
Your thoughts and how you see the world.
When you are able to observe your mind’s behaviour, rather than being run by it and blindly accepting it, you will see that it constantly offers up thoughts which rise to the surface and which can be allowed simply to dissolve away again. Once we have understood this we have taken an important step towards inner peace as our thoughts have lost their power to unsettle and control us.
Much of what we think and how we initially see a situation comes from negative motivations especially anger, craving / greed, aversion / prejudice and our ego. Try to understand that these are just thoughts and are transitional and have no substance in reality. Taking anger as an example, when you experience an angry reaction to an external event, you can choose to ignore it and allow it to gently dissolve away again. In reality, anger has no substance of its own, and does not have to be allowed to sweep us away and cause us to lose control. Once you develop this skill anger has lost its potential power over you. Filter it out and replace it with a positive thought about the situation.
I would like you to think about the following everyday example which illustrates how the way we initially and instinctively think about a situation is not necessarily the truth or the reality.
The phone rings at home. Immediately your mind will tell you who it wants it to be for its own selfish reasons and its belief that it can control events in your life. But when you answer it you find instead that it is an elderly person, perhaps even a close relative, who wants some information or help. Your mind goes into overdrive. It immediately casts a black cloud over your consciousness. You are too busy. You do not have the time. Why me? Why now of all times?
The harder you try to dig deep and do the nice thing and give this person some quality time, the more your mind will be frantically tipping sack loads of negative thoughts over you about how you need to bring this to a rapid conclusion as it is a complete waste of your time.
But what is the reality? In truth you probably can afford a few minutes-what were you doing before that was so precious? See that your mind does not really know how valuable this conversation will be or not be to you or the elderly person. Just because you have such a strong response from your mind it does not mean that it is true or reality. You are in control - not your mind. Don’t tolerate that old selfish and predictable reaction.
Here is an alternative way of thinking about this situation which is much closer to the reality:
“I am going to give this person some time and really listen to them because I have learned that if I give people time and truly, actively listen, I will nearly always find out something that is interesting, stimulating and possibly pleasurable and of benefit.” Say to yourself, “I now live in the moment. I know that I am lucky to be here at all to have this conversation and by the end of it even if it was not that valuable to me I can almost guarantee that it will have been useful to the caller and in all probability the highlight of their day. And the positive energy that was created during the call will enhance my own well being and self esteem for the remainder of my day.”
Be careful how you hold your opinions
Be careful how strongly you hold your opinions and how sure you are that your view of the world and how things should be is the ‘right’ one especially as you get older. Develop the wisdom to know that issues are rarely ‘black and white’ and that ‘things change’ and that there are different ways of seeing things none of which are necessarily ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Have the wisdom to know that there are always two sides to everything. And really try to understand the other point of view and how that point of view might arise regardless of whether you agree with it.
When making a case or expressing a view do not become personally aligned with the view. A view or opinion is just that –a view. You are not that view or defined by it. There are two sides to everything and very little is black and white. Some say there is no right or wrong - just different ways of looking at things. Obviously you can conjure up an extreme example where the moral position appears cut and dried but in general it is true that most issues and debates are a complicated moral maze.
So do not make winning a debate or argument a matter of pride and ego. Just calmly state your view without emotion and mentally shrug your shoulders and think that you hold your view, they are entitled to theirs, and there is no reason why someone else’s view should cause anger to you. Under different circumstances you could just as easily be putting the case for the opposite view!
Be Humble
Understand that if you are successful and a high achiever it is because you are merely standing on the shoulders of those that gone before you in your field or business. You personally have invented very little of the knowledge and skills that you have and apply. The river of human knowledge and human ingenuity is merely flowing through you. If you are for example a great musician you owe so much to the people before you who have created the music, to the people who have educated and encouraged you, and to the people who have made your instruments, and to your audience or customers who finance your lifestyle and enable you to follow your chosen field. You owe everything to the people who have worked in your field before, and in all probability to your parents who have given you the example, role models, love and encouragement to learn and facilitated and provided your education. A spiritual high achieving person does not feel the need to bully or belittle others below them; they do not feel smug and elite, rather they use their position of power or privilege to inspire and encourage others and to give something back.