Pollution of Hinduism-WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT POLLUTED
“Some people live and act according to their own thoughts, and some according to the thoughts of others; this is a crucial distinction between people.” — Leo Tolstoi 1 The “dirtiness” of mental pollution is experienced as being similar to ordinary “external” dirtiness, that is, dirtiness that can be seen, felt or smelt, and is easy to identify. However, mental pollution also has a number of distinctive qualities, such as being induced by direct physical contact or more commonly, induced by psychological processes that do not involve direct contact. Mental pollution can be induced by a thought, a visual image, a critical remark, insult or accusation, or by a memory. It can also be revived by memories. In principle, mental pollution is open to modification by these types of psychological processes, even without any physical cleaning taking place. Because the internal dirtiness of mental pollution is phenomenologically similar to the more common, even daily, feelings of dirtiness, affected people experience an urge to clean themselves or their polluted possessions. Unfortunately, these attempts at conventional cleaning are rarely successful, except perhaps transiently. The feelings of internal dirtiness are relatively immune to external cleaning, are more persistent, puzzling and frustrating. 2 In our connected society, our thoughts easily get polluted with dogma. We keep getting bombarded by other people’s biases, prejudices, exaggerations, and outright lies. We’re forced to process an incredible amount of information, and we have very little free time to do it. It’s not surprising that critical thinking is becoming harder than ever. Everyone deals with this deluge of opinions in different ways. I tend to look for a refuge in classic literature, and I highly recommend picking one author and deep-diving into his or her work. Leo Tolstoy’s thoughts on Russia in the 19th and early-20th century have given me some important breakthroughs about my own life, especially when it comes to how I process politics. 3 “Usually our minds are full of things that we are afraid will defile the purity of our actions. We have this impression of our minds being like a river and we feel like it's too polluted, we beat ourselves up over the fear that the mind pollution is going to spill over into our actions. This specific type of fear causes self-consciousness and self-doubt. The root of all this is the unawareness that we are, in reality, living and acting through our hearts and not through our minds. It is not from the mind that our bodies move and not through the mind that our hands choose who to touch, whom to hold onto and what to catch in midair. None of it is the mind. It is all the heart. And the heart cannot ever become polluted, not for a second. The heart can be torn, it can bleed, it can stop sometimes and it can even die. But it can never, it will never ever become polluted. You are your heart: the way you move, the way you love, the way you reach out to touch someone. By the contents of the heart the hands choose which threads to weave and which nails to hammer or to yank asunder. You need not fear. You are pure.” 4 "Where the mind is so polluted" refers to a state where someone's thoughts are heavily contaminated by negative or harmful ideas, often associated with excessive exposure to disturbing content, constant negativity, or overwhelming stress, causing a clouded and unhealthy mental state, similar to how physical pollution affects the environment; essentially, a mind filled with "mental pollution.". A mind filled with persistent negative thoughts, criticism, self-doubt, or obsessive worries can be considered polluted. Excessive exposure to violent imagery, graphic content, or disturbing news can contribute to mental pollution. A polluted mind can negatively affect concentration, decision-making, and overall mental clarity. 5 The worst type of pollution is the pollution of the mind and it is the cause of all the other forms of pollutions. Environmental, financial, political or systemic pollution (corruption) find their roots in the greed and self-centeredness of individuals suffering from the pollution in their minds. To bring about a sustainable change in the world we should start by working on the attitude and mindset of people especially at school and home levels. All systems, parliaments, governments, bureaucracies, teachers, business people, doctors come from the population and unless we improve the basic mindset at grass root level we will always struggle to find professionals who have a broader, altruistic, global view of collective, sustainable and harmonious living. 6 What is mind pollution? What I mean by mind pollution is the number of negative thoughts absorbed by the mind without us noticing it. Sometimes we do notice them but do nothing as we are unaware of the art of managing our emotions and mind. These negative thoughts or the mind pollutants have a grave impact on our behaviour and emotions and drains our creative energy which is key for coming up with innovations, the lifeblood for any business. Mind pollutants include: imaginary fears, negative thinking, complacency and procrastination, dogmatic paradigms, judging attitude, need for making others acquiesce to our point of view through force, intolerance, meaningless criticism, anger and superiority or inferiority complex. 7 Through human progress, we have shrunk the world into a microcosm and have bought global connectivity into the palm of the hand in the form of a smartphone. We are connected 24/7 to the world and our minds are bombarded with information all the time. Social media has accentuated comparisons, dialled up cravings for living someone else over glorified life on the net, and for those lacking a discerning and emancipated mind, a perfect storm to be affected by a sense of deprivation. The mind is the real frontier that has to be explored and conquered. Those who can understand themselves, keep their minds quiet and remain steadfast and focused achieve success in professional and more importantly in the living experience of life. 8 There is a famous story about the power of the mind that goes like this…Once upon a time, there was a young man who was walking through a forest, as the night fell he decided to rest. He looked for some cushioned grass and sat on it while resting against a tree. It so happened that the tree he was resting against was a wishing tree. The young man thought, ‘It would be great if I had something to eat, as I am feeling really hungry.’ As he was sitting under the wishing tree his wish was granted and food appeared in front of him. He rejoiced the gourmet food and wished he had some drinks to go with the appetizing meal. Lo and behold, drinks appeared. He drank merely and wished, ‘It would be perfect if I can have some entertainment.’ Like magic, entertainment commenced. He was now in complete ecstasy enjoying a delightful manifestation of all his desires. What can be better for a tired hungry young man than to get a palatable meal, connoisseur drinks and live enchanting entertainment? Perfect life! 9 At this point, a thought came to his mind that whatever he is wishing for is manifesting itself. He wondered if there were ghosts in the forest. Well, as he wished for the ghosts, they appeared. He got scared and thought that the ghosts will eat him and alas he was eaten. The moral of the story is how the thoughts can change the experience from sheer ecstasy to morbidity. There are no wishing tree’s in the world but our mind is more powerful than a wishing tree and has the ability to manifest anything provided we remain focused and take meaningful action to achieve it. 10 So the question is how do we clean our mind of pollutants and keep it strong and positive. Here are a few thoughts for consideration: 11 “Know yourself. Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.” Ann Landers The most important step in the journey of becoming limitless by freeing oneself of the mind pollutants is to develop self-awareness. Start by understanding the story that plays in your mind about your life. It will enable you to identify your limiting paradigms. Limiting paradigms are simply the way you look at things or the limiting beliefs about things, people or life. For example, a limiting paradigm can be, ‘It's impossible to succeed in this environment’ or ‘You have to be born in an affluent family to be successful’ or ‘I am too old to make a comeback in life.’ Once we understand our limiting paradigms, we can consciously replace them with positive paradigms and beliefs that support the accomplishment of our goals and enable us to live a vibrant, balanced life full of energy and vitality. Know thyself is a powerful filter to sieve off the pollutants from the mind. 12 “A negative mind will never give you a positive life,” (unknown). Feed positive thoughts and starve the negative, worrying and hopeless thoughts. Every day millions of thoughts pass our mind as we are exposed to information deluge, indulge in active thinking or unnecessarily ruminate. These thoughts are all desperately seeking our attention like a child in a candy store fascinated by the candy colours and desperately wanting all of them and unable to make a choice and getting frustrated. The thoughts that we feed by giving our attention to, stay with us while the ones we ignore starve and pass as quickly as they come. So, the choice is ours in deciding which thought to hold and which to ignore. However, to have a discerning mind that can make the right choices all the time requires a lot of emotional hygiene, self-understanding and control. An art that is unfortunately not actively taught at schools, homes or at organizations. Make choice a screen to ward off the mind pollutants from affecting your emotional wellbeing. 13 “Life is not easy, and it will only become harder if all you do is complain,” (Anonymous) Complaining is a signal of an internal turmoil that is expressed as a dissatisfaction with events, people and life around ourselves. I love the metaphor that you can only get orange juice if you squeeze an orange. Even if you squeeze a million oranges, you will never get apple juice. Likewise, what is inside us come out at the slightest provocation. We all understand the power of the mind and the importance of positive thinking, maintaining a happy demeanour, power of gratitude and encouragement and courage to be humble and open to learn and accept our mistakes. However, our own mind, not the circumstances, people or economics prevent us from achieving the life we so desire. It is our inability to control and manage the mind which is the cause of all evils. Just like the placebo and nocebo effects, the mind can manifest the good and also the bad. All transformations start from within and we should have a sensitive antenna to catch the symptoms of mind pollution so we can quickly purge the mind off them. Keep the mind clean by developing healthy rituals to purge all pollutants out of the mind. Practice meditation, use affirmations, offer gratitude, learn from experiences and appreciate when you see something good. There is no magic pill to mind cleaning. It is a way of life that instils the filters to keep our mind clean and strong. 14 “Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity,” Will Smith. As part of growing up in Pakistan, I often heard the phrase, ‘Chalta hai,’ which means it is fine or it will work in the situation. Parking in a no parking zone, chalta hai, spitting paan (betel leaf chewed for taste and habit) on the walls, chalta hai. Being late to meetings, chalta hai. I can go on and on. The point is that this chalta hai attitude is the symptom of a grave underlying disease of mediocrity. It is a mind pollutant that deteriorates the culture as it spreads like a virus. By pursuing excellence in every small act, every small interaction or every small engagement, we can vaccinate ourselves from the malaise of mediocrity. Complacency, procrastination, living in our comfort-zones, are simply iterations of mediocre living. Stretch, stretch and stretch the boundaries in the mind by taking action and not fearing to fail. There is no such thing as a failure, it is only a learning experience that can prepare you to achieve future success. Not excellence but the pursuit of excellence in everything is a way to protect ourselves from mind contamination. 15 “Failure is so common a human experience that what distinguishes us from one another is not that we fail but rather how we respond when we do,” Guy Winch, Emotional First Aid. Emotional Hygiene is the one stop shop solution to freeing the mind of pollutants. Just like we follow physical hygiene to keep our bodies clean of pollution, we should practice emotional hygiene to keep our mind, emotions and thoughts free of pollutants. Emotional hygiene includes rituals such as self-awareness, meditation, eating and sleeping right, offering gratitude, encouraging others, pruning negative people from life, exercising, following our passion and laughing mostly at our own-selves. It is said that all change starts from within and what happens when we look inside and practice emotional hygiene to keep our thoughts and mind free of pollutants, we become focused, aware and fastidious in rising from failures and strong to persevere to achieve our goals. Failing, passing, good, bad, successful, poor, famous, obscure, etc, are at best all judgments when looked from a tainted lens of evaluation. The failure in exams does not mean the individuals become a failure in life. Rather than the aptitude of the person is in another area or she/he is not coached properly. To rise from any situation it is important to keep our emotions pristine and mind happy. Develop positive rituals to maintain a strong emotional hygiene regimen. 16 “Self is a sea boundless and measureless,” Kahlil Gibran. The biggest enigma of life is how boundless and limitless humans are chained in their own mind to live a limited, less than fabulous life. Our conditioning, unpleasant experiences and inability to raise the level of our emotional and intellectual capacities leads us to inadvertently allow our minds to become dumping station of others limitations, thinking and beliefs, and we indulge in ruminating over an imaginary story of despair playing in the mind. All this causes us to settle for much less than what we deserve from the experience of life. 17 I am a huge believer in the power of the mind and human ability to rise from the debris to achieve stellar goals while living a balanced and vibrant life. In this regard I have created a program, The Art of Becoming Limitless. The objective of the program is to help free the mind from artificial barriers and pollutants like fears, negative thinking, complacency, stress and limiting paradigms, to unleash the potential in people and organizations for business transformation and for a vibrant, balanced and fulfilling life, enriched with energy and vitality at any age. 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