Monday, 13 March 2017
Believing What You Want To Believe
It
is important to realise that man has been a victim of his emotions since long
before he was able to think. These emotions of anger, frustration, pleasure and
fear, are too deep seated to be pushed aside completely or easily. But you must
try to think with your mind and not with your emotions. Our emotions are what
cause us to be suggestible; they make prisoners of prejudice and habit. We are
all prejudiced in many ways, and our prejudices must inevitably lead, mould and
distort our thinking.”Prejudice” means what it sounds like-to “Pre-Judge”
someone or something unfavourably. He who thinks along this is thinking
ineffectively. Don’t pre-judge anything if you wish to keep moving towards the
goal of an organised mind. I’m not suggesting that we get rid of our emotions entirely
. Not only is that possible . It is undesirable. If we had no emotions, we would
resemble the characters we read about in science fiction-just thinking
machines. So we cannot get rid of our emotions, but we can learn to master them
or hold them in check. Stop thinking emotionally, and you may stop thinking in
extremes. If you should meet one foolish woman, and think “what fools women
are!”, you’re thinking ins extremes. If you
say of an acquaintance. “He is the worst card player in the world” “you
are thinking in extremes again. If you fall with something on the first try ,
and say “I will never be able to accomplish it” that-well, besides being
negative thinking, it is also extreme . Thinking in most cases is, emotional
and prejudiced thinking.. 
When
we talk about prejudice and emotions in thinking we cannot possibly go on
without mentioning nationalisation . we all rationalise , and always will,
possibly but if we realise that we are doing it, that may help to lessen it.
Rationalisation is really just a way of feeding our egos, and a little bit of
it cant do any great harm. Now the realisation that we are prejudiced and suggestible
and tend to rationalise our motives should lead to cleaner and more effective
thinking.
It
is inevitable that most of us tend to believe what we desire to believe. If you
always keep in mind that prejudice is really just wanting something to be true whether
it si or not you well on your way to braking its bonds. Courtesy wisdom
Quote from the True Charm and
Power of Vedanta
Some
people think that to realise God fully one must rise from dualism to monism. This
is not true in every case. The dualist , by his own method, attains the highest;
he wants nothing higher. There are four forms of Mukti or salvation from misery-
Salokya, Samipya, Sarupaya, and Sayujya. Salokya mukti fulfils the highest ambition
of man by enabling him to live in the same place with God . Samipya brings the
perfected would very near God to the relation of His most beloved son or servant. Sarupya fills the mind of the perfected one
with so much love for his Beloved that he sees, hears, feels, desires and
thinks upon none but Him: so much transformed into that of his Beloved. On the
other hand Sayujya or Kaivalaya merges the perfected soul in Divinity, even the
least separation between the two being
impossible. When any one of these is realised , man becomes perfected.
Mukti means perfection. None will give it up after getting it. As each kind of
Mukti is perfect in itself. Through Bhakti or devotion, Mukti is very easily
realised . it gives the lover his Beloved . after finally reaching Him from
whom the soul has all the time been panting and struggling is there any more
work for it to do?; in Him it rests. Him it feels to be the highest . This is
the final goal preached in the dualistic interpretation of the Vedatna.
The
monistic method of realising God is almost the same. The monist also rebels against
the slavery of passions and desires . The Vedas say that the soul is bound by
three gunas (ropes) Sattva , Rajas, and Tamas . the monist breaks off all
bondages one after another, till at last he realises his freedom. The very
first lesson to Arjuna by Sri Krishna runs thus. ‘Go beyond the dualistic
conceptions of pleasure and pain and of “i” and Though Know that you are changeless,
infinite and perfect. IN this way the monist discovers that there is nothing to
limit him, and then he realises the infinite nature of his self. To say that he
loses himself even as the dew drop merges in the ocean, is only by way of
helping the understanding. The monistic conception does not destroy the individual.
One the contrary the individual who was subject to birth and death, who was
weak and ignorant. Knows himself to be eternal, infinite and all wise. Where there
is no destruction of individuality. The man has been awakened from his also dream
that he was finite. This is the Prabuddha or awakened condition, in which one realises
that one’s true nature is eternally wise and blissful.
In
the dualistic method enjoyment is the ideal. In the monistic method freedom is
the ideal, . By the first the lover gets his Beloved at last, and by the second
the slave becomes the Master. Both are sublime. One has no need to go from one
ideal to the other. Courtesy Universe and man, The Vedanta
But, if He exists?
I drive joy There was a doctor in
Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God.
Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued
that he was wasting ten precious minutes on something, which he had been misled
into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that
I am wasting ten minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting
your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste ten minutes rather than a lifetime. Why
should you grudge me the 10 minutes joy that I derive 4m.
