Imagine having a fish bowl. In that fish bowl you can put water through five inlets. And to take it a little further, imagine putting 5 different liquids through these different inlets. Well that is quite a fish bowl isn’t it? It’s the same with our minds. Our mind is like this fish bowl. And our senses the inlets.
What we know as our mind is a collection of impressions which we gather through our 5 senses. Our sight, touch, smell, taste & hearing help us navigate through the world. Without our senses, interaction and gathering information would be difficult. Enjoying the beauty of this creation would be equally difficult.
Even though the senses are so essential in life, overstimulation of the senses may lead to a messy mind. When too much information or impressions are gathered, our mind gets cluttered and may decrease in sharpness and can even prevent clarity and focus.
Due to this mechanism of absorbing impressions and continuous interaction with the world, we get all sorts of thoughts and emotions. In fact, the very source of thoughts and emotions is past experiences or impressions. Just try and observe any thought and you shall quickly find out that it is either connected with the past or the future. Even the thoughts of the future are still based on the past experiences. Gathering of all the thoughts and emotions without awareness, leads to a restless mind. Having grip on all the thoughts and emotions may seem difficult. For this reason we consider knowledge about the senses very important.
The reason why many ancient Yogis went into caves or isolated themselves from the rest of the world is because they wanted to master the senses and eventually the mind. Of course there are other ways to reset your senses. Try to experiment by being silent in the morning for 30 minutes. Don't feed your senses in any way possible. No T.V. or radio, no social media on your phone, just you sitting with a cup of tea or just water. Close your eyes. And ‘see’ what your observe. Observe how the mind plays a movie for you with endless thoughts along with specific emotions.
If we are careful with what we put into our stomach, we should also be careful about what goes into our minds. Do not underestimate the power of impressions on your mind. They decide more than 70% of your life, they help you decide every thought and therefore every action. It is not necessary a bad thing to be unaware about these impressions, but at the end of the day this might cause enough misery for ourselves.
If you are reading this and you have once thought that it would be a great idea to have peace in your mind, then do check out our activities which grant you many tools to observe the mind and achieve mental clarity, focus and peace.
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