How to Control Mind?

You know the experience of a tree through the mind only. You must have an intellectual grasp, intellectual conviction and comprehensive understanding of Brahman first through the purified mind. The help of the mind is always needed either for perfection of an object or the understanding of Brahman. Meditation proceeds from the mind only.

Another study regarding athletes programming their subconscious was conducted by Guang Yue, an exercise physiologist. He asked volunteers to imagine flexing their biceps. This “visual weight training” happened every day for a few weeks, and afterward, the volunteers showed a 13.5% increase in physical bicep strength.

Mark how one Sankalpa expands into many Sankalpas (Vistara) in a short time. Suppose you get a Sankalpa to have tea-party for your friends. One thought of tea invites instantaneously the thoughts of sugar, milk, teacups, tables, chairs, table cloth, napkins, spoons, sweetmeats, salted things, etc. So this world is nothing but the expansion of Sankalpas. The expansion of thoughts of the mind towards the objects is bondage (Bandha). Renunciation of Sankalpas is liberation (Moksha). You must be ever watchful in nipping the Sankalpas in the bud. Then only you will be really happy. Mind tricks and plays. You must understand its nature, ways and habits. Then only you can control it very easily.

His favorite way to make the most of this transitory state was to place a tin plate on the floor and hold a spoon over the plate, while seated in a chair. He would relax his body, entering that dream state and the moment he would fall asleep, the spoon would fall out of his hand and hit the plate, waking him up so that he could record what his subconscious drew up.

The mind assumes the shape of any object it intently thinks upon. If it thinks of an orange it assumes the shape of an orange. If it thinks of Lord Krishna with flute in hand, it assumes the shape of Lord Krishna. You must train the mind properly and give it proper Sattvic food for assimilation. Have a Sattvic background of thought or mental image.

In the “Love Study” experiment, researchers sought to show the effects one’s thoughts can have on another person. Couples were separated in different rooms, separated by walls of steel. The objective was to see if the participants could transmit thoughts to each other.

The form which the endless Atman (Supreme Spirit) assumes through Sankalpa is Manas (mind). The mind attains the quiescent state of Para-Brahman through its enemy of discrimination. It first turned its back upon discrimination and hence entangled itself in the folds of Vasanas of objects.

Other factors that could have helped this work is the belief that the experiment works, the love and compassion for the other, and the intense focus.  This just goes to show that people you are close to, can subconsciously receive thoughts.

The mind is like a wheel which revolves endlessly with tremendous velocity. It generates new thoughts with every revolution. This wheel is set in motion by the vibration of psychic Prana or subtle Prana. The practice of Pranayama lessens the velocity of the mind and slows down the wheel gradually. Perfect control of Prana will bring the wheel to a standstill.

Alcohol, meat, Rajasic foods, cinema, novel-reading, obscene songs, obscene sights, evil company, obscene talks will make the wheel of mind revolve very rapidly whereas fruits, Sattvic food, company of Mahatmas, study of religious books, solitude, Japa, Kirtan, concentration, meditation, enquiry of ‘Who am I?’ will slow down the wheel and eventually bring it down to a standstill.

As per biologists, the brain has 90 billion nerve cells held together by trillions of connection points called synapses. But how powerful is the human brain, really? Scientists suggest a human brain can hold as much information as the Internet did circa 2007.

Identify yourself with the Immortal Self. Enquire ‘Who am I?’ whenever thoughts arise in your mind. All the thoughts will gradually die.

Kind of shocking, considering how often we misplace everyday items, or forget what we ate for dinner last night. This just goes to show how much is at work that we don’t consciously know about.

Try putting this into perspective—we only use 5% of the brain’s capacity for memory, which means the subconscious mind controls the remaining 95%. Even though we don’t know it, our subconscious mind is actively at work whether our conscious mind knows it or not!

Don’t really understand how the subconscious works? Try this – next time you’re typing, try to consciously acknowledge each key you’re typing. It’s tiresome and time-consuming, isn’t it? Notice how when you don’t pay attention, the keys still get typed anyways? That’s the power of the subconscious at work!

When you give a blow on the head of a snake with a stick and crush its head, it remains absolutely motionless for some time. You think it is dead. All of a sudden it raise its head and runs swiftly. Even so the thoughts that were once crushed and suppressed by you regain strength and raise up their heads. They must be destroyed totally beyond resurrection.

Your subconscious mind is a ginormous memory bank that has been storing and sorting EVERYTHING that has ever happened to you. By the time a human reaches the age of 21, the amount of data received and stored is 100x the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica—that’s 32 volumes—32,640 pages of 40 million on half a million topics!

It is very difficult to fix the mind on one thought in the beginning. Diminish the number of thoughts. Try to have thoughts on one subject. If you think of a rose you can have all sorts of thoughts connected with rose only. You can think of different kinds of roses that are grown in different parts of the world. You can think of the various preparations that are made out of roses and their uses. You can allow even thoughts of other kinds of flowers to enter; but do not entertain thoughts of fruits and vegetables.

The best way to visualize how the conscious and subconscious works is like an iceberg—the conscious being the small part of the iceberg that appears above the water, and the subconscious being the huge part that rests below the water. Conversely, it’s your conscious mind that is the gardener that plants the seeds into the garden or fertile soil that is the subconscious mind. This why the power of positive thinking is so important!

Fewer the thoughts, greater the mental strength and concentration. Suppose the average number of thoughts that pass through your brain within one hour is one hundred. If you succeed in reducing them by constant practice of concentration and meditation to ninety you have gained ten per cent of power of concentration of mind

The conscious mind commands, and the subconscious mind obeys. This is where the Law of Attraction comes in – if you keep repeating that positive mantra, the conscious mind may not necessarily believe it—yet—but the subconscious mind will “hear” it and work on getting there.

Every thought that is reduced adds strength and peace to the mind. Reduction of even one thought will give you mental strength and peace of mind. You may not be able to feel this in the beginning as you do not possess a subtle intellect; but there is a spiritual thermometer inside to register the reduction of even a single thought. If you reduce one thought the mental strength that you have gained by this reduction will help you to reduce the second thought easily.

The subconscious knows no time. There is no past or future, simply NOW. Using affirmations with the word now or in present time will help align your subconscious and work for you in the moment. Start thinking about what you want as though you already have it.

In rubber plantation, planters take recourse to the method of thinning out the rubber trees by cutting the small surplus trees which stand in the vicinity of big trees. By so doing they can tap more milk or rubber juice from the big trees. Even so you must thin out the thoughts by destroying them one by one to drink the ambrosial milk or nectar of Immortality.

Researchers have revealed that the use of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) significantly improves language ability by allowing our brains to open up and use them more like a thesaurus. While under the influence of LSD, users are able to easily access related words, proving that the drug enhances the brain’s semantic networks. While engaged in a picture-name task, participants were more likely to make the connection between connected meanings like “hand” instead of “foot”.