CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK

You can go through life without problems, if you make the right choices. The right choice is right thinking. If you think correctly, the choice you make must be correct so you won’t have problems in life. If you have problems in life, it is because you have made wrong choices. Now, let’s look at thinking. Our prayer tells us we have been given the five senses to enjoy this beautiful, wonderful life. Can your eyes think? No, they can only see. Your ears can only hear, it cannot think and your nose can only smell. So the five senses are just avenues which a human being moves around with. Some people may not have the five senses, maybe they are blind or maybe deaf but normally people would have five senses. So the decision is yours, when your eyes see something, your brain starts to function and then you make a decision in your brain. The decision you make is based on many things. The past baggage you carry, the hurt feelings, the guilt, the influence people have on you, your entire life experiences good or bad. That is how a person makes a decision. It is your decision and no one else.

Just like when you smell something or when people tells you something, the choice is yours, how you want to take this person’s word and form your conclusion. So right and wrong is your thinking so we need to correct our thinking so that we can make the correct choice of words and action that follow.

The spiritual journey is a journey of changing the way you thinking. You can go to all the holy places, say all the mantras but if you don’t change your thinking, you will never change. Why is it so difficult to change your thinking? First of all, we don’t know how we think. We do not analyze how we think. We go through life unconscious. We are not conscious of the way we think, whether we think negatively or positively, we don’t know it. So the first thing we have to do is analyze and go within, as Jesus had said “Know thyself.” Know thyself means knowing how you think. Your brain is wired based on your friends, the TV and movies you watch, how your parents have influenced you, how your friends have influenced you, all these things make up and hot wire the way you think. The brain as scientists have found out can be hot wired or reprogrammed differently.

Our spiritual reminders tell us “Be positive towards yourself, others, situations and circumstances.” Can we do that? We can’t do that if we are not conscious of our thinking. So the first thing we must know is our thinking process and that is all we need to do really. Life becomes beautiful if you change your thinking. Think negative and you will become a negative magnet and you begin to attract negative things to you. If you are positive in your outlook, nobody can touch you because whatever people tell you, you are positive in your mind. So you generate positive energy. When you generate positive energy, there is a shield around and you attract good things towards you.

So the thinking is all you have to change. Many people have this problem where they say “I can’t change.” Go back to the way you are thinking and know that your five senses cannot do anything. Recently, someone asks me for lunch and I said I wasn’t taking lunch. He asked me are you not hungry? Now what makes you hungry? Your stomach cannot talk. If you say your stomach is rumbling. It is a sound. It is not saying you are hungry but because of the sound, you say you are hungry. Your stomach cannot talk. It is your mind that says 12 o’clock and I have to take my lunch. You become robotic. Who says you must take lunch? It is your mind that says you need to take lunch; it is not the stomach or the rumbling sound.

So, you can do whatever you want but so long as you do not change your thinking, you will never change. You come back life after life because you have not changed the way you think. Don’t blame your ears, it is for hearing. Don’t blame your eyes, it is for seeing. Don’t blame your nose it is for smelling. This is why Vipassana meditation is very good as it allows you to slow down your thinking and not to be disturbed by sounds or feelings. When a sound disturbs you, you say “I hear.” Acknowledging it takes attention away from any discomfort. You have a choice to reject whatever someone tells you or convert it to something positive. Same with smell; the nose cannot decide for you whether the smell is good or bad. The eyes also cannot decide for you, it only sees.

Now the very fact that you say “I want to change”, that is awakening. Who is the person within you who says “I want to change”? There is another person within you who says “I want to change my thinking.” For some people they go through life and they don’t know that they need to change. They are called unconscious people but if you say “I want to change” that means the divine in you has been awakened and wants to do something about it. So be happy that you are awakened because you find that there is a need to change. If you decide to do something about your life and decide to change, the fruits of your labour will be there. Definitely you will benefit. Try this, especially the young ones, try this, be positive. If your teacher gives you a lot of homework, you say very good, it is for my own benefit. When your teacher gives you extra homework, you say “Thank you teacher for giving me extra homework.” That is being positive about things but some people complain too much homework, I cannot watch TV, cannot play games. So the choice is yours. If that is how you think, that is how you will feel. You have the right to make your own decision, ultimately you make the choice.

Make the right decision and tell yourself, “From today onwards I want to make sure my thinking is always positive.” To do that, you have to have this small window of time where you don’t react. Try this, when people tell you something, just listen, when you see something, just see. After you have done that, then you form a positive conclusion. Try to live the spiritual reminders, “Be positive towards yourself, others, situations and circumstances.” You are training your mind to always to think positive. After many attempts you will be connected. No need to do anymore. Just like you don’t know that you are breathing. It’s automatic. For thinking, it must not be automatic because it is always going the wrong way, the negative way. So you have to train it always to go positive. So when people tell you something, always have positive words until it becomes automatic. When that happens, then you can pat yourself on the back and say “Yes, I have done a little bit to correct my way of thinking.” But be on your guard, because it is very easy to slip backwards. The ego is always there. They say ego never rests on its laurels. Ego never rests, it is always waiting to pounce on you and then say “Aha, I got you.” So be on guard.

Does it make you a doormat when you become so withdrawn? No! If you need to speak out do so but do not harbor the negative energy within you. If someone wrongly accuses you or an injustice is done to you speak up to put right the situation. But after it is said and done, have no negative feelings toward the person that has done you the injustice.

Stay away if you can from people who are out to hurt you by malicious words or acts. That is a choice you make but always remain in harmony within so that your life can be beautiful.