Has it happened to you that some thought was stuck in your head? You would willingly get rid of it, but it would not disappear as a troublesome fly. How can we escape unnecessary thoughts? Can we put it under control?
Many of you may know the expression by Charles A. Hall
“sow a thought — reap an act,
sow an act — reap a habit,
sow a habit — reap a character,
sow a character — reap a fate.”
Every thought has consequences in real life. Forgetting about the importance of thoughts in our head, we admit uncontrollable emotions, reactions and events in our life. With time we can notice that we don’t like what is happening with us. We want to change the situation for the best. Yoga says that there is a solution — we should put our mind under control.
Yoga is intended to solve our problems!
Classically yoga is aimed to stop the appearing of thought forms on the surface of our mind — “chitta-vritti-nirodha”. But is it so simple?
Control of our thoughts is a topic for discussion of many philosophers, practitioners and just common people. Everyone finds an appropriate way to achieve this goal.
What does yoga suggest?
First of all, we can use meditation as one of the yoga instruments.
There are many meditation techniques. The main objective is to take a comfortable position, Keep your back straight and relax all body structures: physical, emotional, causal.
In this state of relaxation, you should concentrate on any process — breathing, appearing of thoughts, watching the candle flame.
Concentrating on the subject of meditation, we do not pay attention to other distractions. Thoughts come and go away. At first, they seize us, because often they are followed by emotions. But we just observe this process and return our attention to the subject.
With time we involve less and less in the process of thought-forming, the quantity and brightness of other thoughts reduce. And our mind gets more involved in the subject of meditation.
Such concentration triggers the mechanisms which allow to find the process of controlling the thoughts in our everyday life. The practicing person can hold attention on the subject easier, than a person who does not practice the strong-willed concentration.
The attention of a practicing person stops switching from one thought to another. The actions become more considered, consistent and logical, the concentration grows, the quantity of “parasitic” thought forms reduces. In future any yoga’s instrument can be used as a conscious meditation.
Kriya yoga will become dynamic meditation, Rita yoga — dance meditation. Karma yoga will become meditation during the work. The main thing is to keep consciousness in every moment of practice and life.
From the simple to sophisticated we can turn our life to complete conscious meditation, becoming more logical, calm, harmonious and happy! We will be able to choose ourselves the subjects, on which we want to direct our attention, and not to direct our attention to the subjects, which are distracting and disturbing at this moment.
Get rid of non-useful thoughts and be happy!
Author: Marina Mirra
Editors: Kerigona, Maria Saraswati Bhavani
Translated by: Evgeniya Agni
Project curator: Kerigona
