Today and everyday, what we think is what we are. Our thinking forms our life. Most of us think we are a small fish in the ocean of life—samsara. This style of thinking comes to us due to various factors which deeply influence our mentality. Ancestral influence, financial position, culture of the society we move with, clan, place where we live, our upbringing contribute a lot to our thinking. Very rarely do we find people who think beyond their own logical mind, who stretch above their limits. Those who do it become great achievers!
Spirituality teaches us to visualise ourselves to be a huge, majestic and magnificent whale in the ocean of life. Our mind should evolve to highest possibility. We must make a conscious effort to not limit ourselves to think we are an ordinary, insignificant soul like the small tiny fish in a lake. We have the potential to expand to immense, unimaginable proportions like a giant whale because we have a soul—atman—which is the storehouse of power of the universal consciousness.
An unevolved mind is like a tiny balloon. It is a balloon which has not opened up to its full capacity. When air is blown into a small balloon, it expands. Greater the expansion, greater is its beauty. The beautiful colours and patterns on the balloon are revealed to its full extent. Similarly when our mind expands, the beauty of our life with its latent potential, our skills and talents come out in its best expression, like poetry, creativity, music, drama or oratory.
For our mind to expand to the unlimited universe, we have to walk into the divine world leaving behind our mundane past experiences, fears and apprehensions. This new walkway will bring in freshness into everything we do as it shakes you off from mundane dirt and brings in new sense of awareness. With this awareness in our mind, we automatically pray with all our heart as stated in the Rig Veda 10.20.1—“O God Almighty, lead our mind towards the virtuous path”.
Awareness of our breath through practising the yogic techniques of pranayama balances the vital forces in our body. It stills the mind. When our mind stills, it simultaneously expands. Our mind instantly slips into contemplation and meditation. It soars to greater heights through meditation, fixing our vision on a Higher Ideal. Then divine virtue of compassion automatically sets in our hearts making us feel warm and loving towards every soul we come across.
We will then begin each day with gratitude to God for blessing us with a new, fresh day with immense possibilities for achieving our aims and goals. A new sense of hope sets into us and we set our best foot forward in all our endeavours with the confidence ‘I am Possible’ instead of ‘impossible’. We free ourselves from limiting mindsets, prejudices and all conditionings and make our mind light enough like a fully blown balloon.
Our heart and mind now merge with all the universal laws of nature and we understand the magnificence of the universal consciousness. We expand our mind with the creator’s creation through a prayer from Rig Veda 1.8.7— Infinite are your powers and the capacity to draw and discharge like the oceans.
You protect the entire creation by your radiance. Like the oceans you collect and like the sunrays you disperse.
ashram-india@ shrinimishamba.org