Thoughts

Thoughts, thoughts all the time. It seems almost impossible to live without thoughts. Every moment our mind is full of thoughts. Thoughts related to past or future. Mind is hardly still even for a moment. 

Somebody asks what is wrong with the thoughts. That is quite normal. In fact not having thoughts make us abnormal. How will we live life? what will be our motivation for the next action? How will we make decisions?

Can we examine the nature of thoughts? Have these thoughts changed with age or remained the same? When we were students, our thoughts comprised mainly matters related to studies and friends. When we entered into a relationship, our thoughts comprised past memories and future plans of our relationship. When we got the job, our thoughts comprised mainly issues related to the work area and colleagues. When we had kids, our thoughts mainly comprised thoughts about the future of the kids. Thus, the content of our thoughts keeps changing based on our life experiences and future ambitions.

Thus, our thoughts are limited to what we know or what we can imagine or plan. I am sure that most of us would not have thought of the existence of a Higgs field that gives mass to the sub-atomic particles. However, the science of the day has proved the existence of the same through the experiments at CERN. Similarly, very few would have thought of something called an airplane before it was designed by some "then appearing to be mad" people. Similarly, few would have thought of walking on the moon till we made active efforts in that direction. Few would have thought of surgery through laparoscopy, till the same was invented.

What I mean to say is that generally, most of our thoughts are limited by our experiences. Since most of our attention is occupied by these thoughts, they in turn make us limited. While, on the other hand, life is full of infinite possibilities. Earth appeared to be flat just a few hundred years back and everybody knows the reality of the entire solar system today. Treatment of many diseases seemed impossible a few decades back and it is quite a routine now. In fact, treatment of COVID seemed impossible when it spread in the form of a pandemic and we soon made a vaccine for the same. Walking on the moon seemed impossible some time back and now we have reached Mars and making efforts for human landing there. 

I mean to say that all of us have infinite possibilities. However, the thoughts fill our minds with our past experiences and speculations about the future. If our brain is always full of these thoughts, there is no space left for new possibilities. A pot that is full, has no space for something new. Most of our motivations and initiatives are a product of these thoughts. Probably the divine, which has given birth to the entire universe, is ever ready to show the path of possibilities to human beings, but they are too busy with their thoughts. Every time the divine tries to widen our perspective, we start crying about our bad luck.

I have seen people connecting to new possibilities after a major loss in life. I have seen people setting up grand NGOs after the loss of their only kid and serving humanity in a big way. Tulsidas is a great example who wrote Ramcharitmanas, probably the most famous scripture in Hindu mythology after he was insulted by his wife. Kalidas became one of the greatest poets of Sanskrit after a similar insult by his wife. Can't we see that each one of us is full of all these possibilities since all of us have entered different human bodies as a representative of the same infinite eternal consciousness?

However, why do we need to wait for some crisis or shock? Why don't we just connect to the divine? Why are we so lost in the ignorance and the thoughts that are a product of that ignorance? Not so that there are no alarms to wake us up. We see the stars every day in the sky to remind us about the vastness of the universe. We have the changing weather to remind us of the functioning of so many forces of nature. We have a beautiful (seen as frightening) demonstration of the powers of nature in the form of floods, storms, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Yet we give a damn about all these phenomena. The divine does not leave us and tries to wake us up in the form of mishappenings in our lives in the form of accidents, deaths, losses, and crises. But we keep sleeping covering ourselves with the thick layers of ignorance.

I feel that each one will have to evolve sooner or later. Evolution is our destiny. We can not run away from that and there will come a time when all of us will connect to the divine within and will know our potential that is full of infinite possibilities. Like a good friend, the divine is not going to leave us in this self-made crisis. However, intelligence says that we need not wait for disasters and crises for that to happen. Why not hold the hand of the divine and empty our minds of the thoughts to allow him to fill our minds with divine guidance? Why not experience the wonders and beauty of life, rather than wasting it in routine? Why not wake up ourselves and why wait for the alarm bells?