The Infinite Mind

9 How to Make the Mind Strong THERE ARE ONLY TWO ways to make one’s mind strong. One: When life shows you unfortunate times and pushes your mind to accept situation. When a person is bound by a situation, unable get out of it, he struggles. The desire for freedom from the situation or some kind of relief is so strong that the mind becomes innovative. Hence the mind becomes stronger. . Second: Through knowledge Here, I want to clarify, and it may seem contradictory, but an adamant mind is not a strong mind. Famous people get recognized because of their talent; this is one aspect they have, which is recognized by someone. Polishing of that talent starts before the talent is publicly announced. Such talent either gets highlighted through one’s passion or is recognized by others or it is discovered by another person. Creativity and talent are born from a strong mind, keeping the mind balanced in a highly stressed situation, by not being reactive in a situation rather analysing it with awareness. Most famous people on the planet have one common thing in their lives. They have been hit by life hard enough to push them to recognize what they are capable of. There may have been a do or die situations and that becomes their road to fame. First Scenario: A jobless person wants freedom from unemployment and hence he becomes innovative in finding ways to survive and persist. Ansh without a job for many months was under tremendous stress as life was throwing him challenges. But during this stressful period, he began thinking of making money to survive through the shortest path possible. The shortest path to do any work is minimum energy required to do the task with maximum outcome. A jobless person suddenly becomes creative and finds numerous ways to earn money. Second Scenario: Let me explain through an exercise. I am sure there are people who freak out just looking at a cockroach or a lizard. This person who loses control every time is 28 years old. He forgets that his body size is much, much bigger than the size of the cockroach. When asked why he does not like cockroaches, his answer is, ‘They are creepy with their colour and they live in drains.’ Fair enough! Fortunately for him, one incident took place. He had enrolled in a self improvement programme. Unfortunately the instructor asked the group, “How many of us here are afraid of cockroaches?” He raised his hand in reply to the question. To his surprise the next instruction the instructor gave to his assistant was to get a cockroach. The instructor asked the guy to come to the front of the group, sit on the chair and extend his arm with his open palm facing the sky. He did as he was asked to and the assistant promptly dropped a dead cockroach on his hand. The guy dropped the cockroach as soon he felt the tingling sensation of cockroach touching his hand and a shiver ran through him. In this situation, he was asked to keep the cockroach for two minutes and then he could leave. Many times he dropped the cockroach and ran back to his chair but the assistant brought him back. . Finally, to get out of the situation he said he would try one last time. So he closed his eyes to avoid looking at the dead cockroach’s colour. So shutting down one sensory perception was logical. After a few minutes and several attempts, he gathered the courage and finally could keep the cockroach for on his palm for 2 minutes. Here is his testimony about what happened through this exercise: ‘I am 28 years old and was carrying an impression of fear in me. Fear of cockroaches. But today I feel so good that I was able to break that mind barrier. Really, I felt free and it is an amazing feeing.’ How many of us are there, holding such fears and have never been given the chance to break out of that fear. In the above mentioned scenario the driving force or the impetus was an external force. Such a force pushed mind power to such extent so that one achieved that which was thought to be impossible. Third Scenario: Imagine a person is put in to a wooden box as a prisoner with just one hole in the box for air to enter. The mind of the person then scans that box from all possible angles to check which side is weak. He will scan for any cracks which he can widen by kicking from inside the box. Any loose screw he could find and could get out using the screw as a weapon to widen a hole slowly and free himself. All the efforts are to free himself. A lot of innovative ideas are generated under stress. In case he fails, he will take rest. When the mind is resting, it wanders to what he is wearing. Is he wearing something that can be used as a weapon to crack the box, may be the buckle on his belt? So this guy pushes his mind to get himself free out of this wooden box. All world records are created because people are able to push their thought process to a certain level. Pushing the mind to such an extent that you come out of the situation and feel free is an indication of a strong mind. The above scenarios were situational, forced on the mind externally. Now let’s talk about the Second Method – Knowledge If you remain centred in knowledge, combined with awareness, even if your mind tries to trick you and direct you towards unhealthy and unwanted activities, remember the knowledge will help you pull yourself in the opposite direction. Keep yourself busy with productive activities; you will not get time to indulge in unhealthy activities.