Power of the subconscious mind
Negative thinking patterns engineer maladies while positive thinking keeps us cheerful and blessed with jollity and good health, writes RAVI VALLURI
The strapping warrior Sakyan-prince was to have ascended to the throne. Much to the approbation of his father, King Suddhodhana, Siddhartha (one who has accomplished a goal) discarded the robes of a warrior and adorned ochre robe in search of the quintessential truth. The prince desired an attempt to unravel the hidden mysteries, exemplary and prototypical hidden questions in the subconscious mind.
Prince Siddhartha through deep tapas (rigorous practice) transfigured his thought process and first metamorphosed to become Gautama, the monk and upon attaining enlightenment was called the Buddha.
This was reliably and unambiguously prophesised by the perspicacious and sagacious seer Asita. Buddha means the “one who is awakened”, an individual, who is aware and mindful, enveloped with compassion, a person who has broken the glass ceiling of illusion. Such an individual, blessed with a brawny mind can appreciate the riddles and paradoxical situations that are evocative and emblematic of the subconscious mind.
Our minds are enveloped in the fog of amour proper – sense of one’s own worth and surrounded by thicket of ignorance. The swathes of mind are brimful of antipathetic and Sisyphean thoughts. A compassionate and enlightened soul wades through the nugatory thinking patterns and emerges with pristine beauty. Such a mind is robust and mindful.
The holy grail of such a mind is its innocence and transparency. There is nothing concealed and no hidden agenda. It just spreads waves of happiness and love all around. Such an individual is surrounded by a resplendent aura and attracts like a magnet people suffused with efficacious thoughts. The Law of Attraction in operation!
Interestingly enough, Gautama the Buddha was born on a full moon day, attained enlightenment on a full moon day and cast away his mortal body also on a full moon day. It has been scientifically proven that moon, the satellite that rotates around the earth is around 400,000 kms or 250,000 miles distant.
Despite this vast distance, it exerts a powerful gravitational force on both land and water on the Earth. The impact is discernable in the ocean tides (inanimate body), but since time immemorial psychologists have attempted to analyse its footprints on animate bodies too.
Since times immemorial, humans have quite interestingly coalesced the rhythms of this celestial body into a lunar calendar. The moon is a dark satellite and essentially reflects the light of the Sun. Thus, has moon has been a repository of immense religious and artistic aspirations of the human mind. The moon has a deep connect with the human mind. Our body is seventy percent of water element.
In the Art of Living foundation, seekers, and devotees practice the Full Moon meditation. This muscular and robust meditation technique energises the subconscious mind with efficacious thoughts and suffuses the being with high levels of prana. The moon is often linked with acquisition of knowledge, also associated with mood swings, feelings, and overwhelming emotions in a subconscious and unconscious state. In maximal and terminal form, it also touches upon lunacy.
“The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth,” wrote Norman Cousins (the author of Anatomy of Illness). Aeons ago the pontiff of a temple of knowledge was delivering a discourse on a full moon day regarding the technique of breathing mindfully to ward-off antipathetic thoughts. An inquisitive student asked, “What does one imply by being enlightened?”
The Zen Master quoted the Buddha, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dwell in the future, concentrate the mind on the present. The present moment is inevitable and being in that state is nothing but being enlightened.” The pyretic postulant was not satisfied with the reply. The Zen Master added, “Let it be grasped by all tutees that seventy percent of our body consists of water element. Our thought processes can be a salubrious effect or a deleterious pounding on the subconscious mind.”
He asked for two jars of water to be brought. He invoked all positive energies and blessed one jar of water. From his subconscious mind he projected that the water would be pristine and exude only positive energies. And he stuck a label on the jar, which read that it was consecrated and akin to the elixir of life. The Zen Master then peered at the second jar and mused, “This jar and water are unholy.” He was to stick a label on the jar - “I’m an unfortunate soul brimfull of negative energies.”
Upon completion of the class the Master directed all the tutees to assemble the in the courtyard the following morning, when the two jars would be examined. The following morning Zen Master slowly walked in, dressed immaculately. He directed the febrile tutee to lift the veil over both the jars. To the utter amazement of all assembled, the first jar was filled with resplendent crystalline structures and the other was absolutely turgid in appearance.
The beaming Zen Master quoted Buddha once more, “All that we are is the result of what we thought.” “Everything is in the mind and the strain of thoughts of our subconscious mind. If our aura is pure and we think positively, only good would happen and in case our mind focuses on demonic thoughts, the results would be disastrous.”
The Zen Master was to add further that human mind triggers positive endorphins and also pestilences. Negative thinking patterns engineer maladies while positive thinking keeps us cheery and blessed with jollity and good health. “This is the power of the subconscious mind.”
Therefore, be it a savant, a seeker or a stock individual, through relentless sadhana and cultivation of propitious thoughts should harness the power of the subconscious mind for the development of a divine society.