“Your thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes have a powerful influence on your actions and the outcome of your life.” What does this saying mean? Simply put, we become a reflection of what we think about. When I say this, I don’t mean that if you are thinking about flowers you are going to turn into one. Now you’re probably thinking that what I am saying is absurd, but truly it’s not, let us dive deeper into this topic to understand this!
In a recent lecture that I heard of Sri M.K. Ramanujam ji, senior disciple of HH Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji; he uses a few examples to help us understand this. One of the examples was about a huge garbage dump, filled with plastic bottles, the peels of bananas, rotten fruit, rotten eggs, rotten vegetables, etc. And a man, let’s say Bob, is walking near the garbage dump. He drops his phone into it and he has to put his hand into the dump to search for it. Well what happens to his hand? The obvious answer is that his hand would now stink! In the same way, if we keep having negative thoughts, without realizing it, it will transform us into a negative person.
Let us think about two people. One of them named Albert and the other named Tom. Let’s imagine that Albert and Tom are classmates. One day Albert comes home and tells his mom all about Tom’s bad qualities. Over time, if he continues to think about speak repeatedly about Tom’s negative qualities, Albert unknowingly starts to imbibe those same negative qualities. Albert shows his dislike for Tom and without realizing it, he himself begins to exhibit those qualities that he did not like.
Another example is, when we try to idolize a famous celebrity, we think that whatever they do is ‘perfect’ and believe that we should do it as well. In the beginning, we adore what they are famous for, be it music, sports, arts, etc. But unknowingly, as we try to mimic them, we can sometimes also absorb their ‘not so great’ qualities. This teaches us a lesson that we can appreciate an ability or character trait that somebody has; but we should not make them a huge part of our life, because that can cause a much larger impact on our lifestyle, on the way we act, and the way we are with people, etc.
In summary, we should always be neutral about people, neither like them a lot, nor hate them at the same time. We should take care of our mind as much as we take care of our body. We should make sure that we do not feed it negative thoughts, about ourselves or about others. We should always be careful about who we revere. All the negativity that enters our mind only harms us, in turn.
A pure mind helps us live our life happily!
By Vasudha H Srinivasan, 11 yrs, Snoqualmie, WA
Based on Sri Ramanujamji’s Kishora Bhagavatam sessions
