Life Challenges
The advancement in technology and fast means of communications like mobile phones, internet has landed the world on a fast track 
and people hardly get leisure time to enjoy their hobbies, to listen to their soul, to take care of their loved ones and all the precious moments are passed in coping up with the pace of life and its cut throat competition. It’s like watching a movie in fast forward mode, where although we can see every body in action but can hardly feel the emotions. In such a scenario pressure of not only to be ahead but also to survive has increased multifolds.
As a result – the responses and reactions of human being is preconditioned and there is little or no scope of building healthy relations which are made on the foundation of precious time shared and taking care of each other – not with preoccupied minds but with an open mind to look forward to help and involve oneself truly in the matter. With such an upbringing people have to put a lot of efforts to give even small sacrifices and adjustments in relationships.
There is an unending race of getting material wealth and pursuing always for better state of life irrespective of the present state as the contentment is always sought in achieving higher state. Humans as a result of their uncontrolled mind have become too sensitive to even smallest of the stimulus. Even a little change in their plans because of external factors and or even a little pressure on their emotions make them restless and they are trapped in various psychosomatic diseases owing of their emotional instability and random lifestyle.
Art of managing life in such a scenario has become mandatory like we manage our finances for a healthy lifestyle. Our mind needs to be controlled and directed in the right direction to experience the life on a positive note. Remember – our experience is not what happened to us but how we react to that happening. All the happenings which are result of external factors cannot be controlled by us, but the experience can be made better by controlling our own minds and thus our responses to those happenings. As life is nothing but the flow of such experiences, the moment we learn to train our mind to be stable and calm in fast paced world against all odds in all the moments, the same calmness will also reflect in our lives.
In short managing our life is actually managing our mind and harnessing our psychophysical energy system in the right direction to get the most of our mind having infinite untapped energy. Below are the some of the Vedic age old time tested techniques to control our responses and stabilise our emotions in all odds:-
- Pratipaksha Bhavana
- Purification of Mind (Yama)
- Meditation
Pratipaksha Bhavana:–
The art of thinking exactly opposite to the negative thoughts encroaching our minds is called Pratipaksha Bhavana. There is a term in vedic scriptures called Sakshi Bhava- which means we should be spectator (Sakshi) of all our thoughts (Bhava) and should continuously monitor them to avoid any negative emotions clouding our minds. With this art while coming across the negative emotions/thoughts, as we will be aware of them as spectator, we should try to think about or contemplate on exactly opposite (Pratipaksha) thoughts to conquer these negative emotions. This process of thought monitoring is also called thought culture, wherein we purify our minds to channelise its infinite energy in the right direction. It is truly said by Swami Sivananda- “If you think again and again on impure things, an evil thought gains new strength by repetition. It gets the force of momentum. You must drive them immediately. If you find it difficult to do so, entertain counter-thoughts of God. Cultivate sublime and elevating thoughts. Evil thoughts will die by themselves. A noble thought is a potent antidote to counteract an evil thought.”
Purification of Mind (Yama):-
It is said that a concentrated but impure mind is more dangerous than a pure but not concentrated mind. As our thoughts just like our actions have got the greater capability to harm ourselves if are filled with negative emotions. What we think frequently is what we do frequently. And what we do frequently becomes our habit and then character. Our destiny is decided by our character and our thought processes. Greater is the determination and concentration- stronger is the power of our thoughts. Hence controlling thoughts is a key to our success in managing our responses and increasing our emotional quotient.
Before taking it to meditation it becomes extremely important to purify our mind with positive thoughts so that it should stay on positive thoughts exhibiting positive energy while meditation and we should be able to get the most of it. Ashtanga Yoga by Maharshi Patanjali prescribes one of the processes out of his eight fold process as Yama which means practice of Moral Values to purify the Mind from bad thoughts. This is an excellent way to prepare mind for Meditation and let it rest in peace in all kinds of adverse situations of life.
Meditation:-
It is property of our mind to craves for more sensational pleasures and keep tossing among various objects of the world. It inherently can not rest at one particular object for a longer duration. It is because of this reason that we like a movie or a novel with a very fast story line and our mind is engaged in the incidents and places changing frequently.
By doing meditation we try to get rid of this property of mind and instead of external objects driving it, we try to rest it on our internal soul for a period as long as possible. This increases our will power to contemplate on most complicated subjects and to analyse toughest situations of life from different perspectives to respond in the best possible manner.
It is truly said that tough time never last but tough people do. The above processes make us tough and give our minds ability to withstand all kinds of pressures of life. Instead of getting into grief mode we get habitual gradually to get into learning mode from our present to make our future a better tomorrow.
