World Mental Health Day

It is actually peace from the mind and not peace of mind. Extending the prayers and wishes to everyone for a happy and joyous life forever on this occasion of World Mental health day held on October 10. Whenever we hear something like this, the first thing that comes to our mind is that to have good mental health, cannot be done through any other means but by protecting oneself from one's mind. Usually, we don't fantasize about the different days held for different occasions, as we have 365 days (366 once in 4 years) to live why constrain and accumulate it to only a day in a year for each thing in fragments. Traditionally, the festivals are a way of showing gratefulness and thanksgiving for the entities that supported us through the year. But noticing a trend that more and more days are being introduced merely for commercial purpose, anyways without dwelling into this further let us look about the mental health in detail. I'm not sure if I am a perfectionist or an expert to write this but felt a sense of responsibility to write and share about this as we have been going into this subject for some time now.

 Today around the world, equivalent to physical health, mental health has become very essential, so one thought it is necessary to go into this detail. 50 or 60 years before, the man had limited distractions and maybe to an extent limited wants living a life more than mind with heart, but with the expansion of technology and time, both distractions and wants of the man have multiplied. God has created for man the essentials through nature, but in the want of more sophistication and luxury, man has pursued and taken science and technology to another level in the last 100 to 200 years and especially the last 5 to 7 years our means of communication have become faster and faster, but without any depth. Since we have built this and we are a part of this, there is no way to go back at least in the lifetime of 90's kids.  

 Essentially we are seeking permanency from impermanence. The mind and the entities of the 'Me' formed by the mind want to be attached to something all the time. The root of fear is that the mind and the 'Me' created by the mind is afraid to be lonely. It always thinks what if someone doesn't notice us, or if we will get recognition and so on, heard an interesting insight from K in one of his talks, that we never want to be lonely, but all our acts in a way lead to isolation, for example, the writer wants to get more likes or more views of this article, and when one enters this vicious cycle of comparison, one is lost. But when gives tremendous attention to each moment the mind quiets itself, which is otherwise never possible through any form of suppression, the more we try to control the mind the more it controls you. We shall look at this later. But we will try to find the inherent characteristics of the mind in the next few paragraphs before going into the deeper sense. If one doesn't want to do this kind of a deeper experiment there are at least some other superficial subtle ways to tweak the mind which we will cover initially before going to that point. 

 The nature of the mind is to cling on to something all the time, just that it varies in different ages. In childhood one may cling on to toys, cartoons, in adulthood clinging on to style, impressing the opposite sex, in middle ages clinging on to a job, to companionship, and in old ages to unfulfilled desire, to salvation. The mind is never quite free to go beyond this and hence we fall back into this vicious cycle of wanting something all the time. 

 If one looks into this very closely, the mind is certainly not located within the body, the Eastern world had asserted this throughout, but till this point, we are not sure if the scientists have acknowledged it. The mind travels much faster than the senses and body, for example, though one's stomach might be full, but when the mind sees a yummy thing and it craves for it fulfills by eating the thing and only the body has to bear it later and not the mind. So giving the anti-depressants alone as in the case of modern medicine is certainly not going to give a complete cure for people taking treatment on mental health only making the brain sleepy in the short run, but in the long run, leading to amnesia and so on.

 The mind is a product of craving, response, and rewards, it always seeks a definite end or a goal. If one wants to be more productive and successful in their life careers, these books about the habit formation of mind can help, "The power of habits" and "Atomic habits", the writer got a chance to read both these books sometime back so suggesting here. Essentially these two books help to understand the formation of habits on how the mind sees a thing and craves for it and how it is satisfied interim by the reward of the fulfillment of desire. These two books indicate on replacing bad habits with good habits for more productivity and a better life. We shall see about a deeper approach later in this article, but for a productive and successful life with peace of mind, these two books would be helpful to understand the pattern of thinking. Most of the articles that may circle on this occasion might be centered around this for improvement. All the MNC ads placed in television and social media in one way or another tweak this craving and reward mechanism of the mind and stimulate it in their commercials and infact the likes, shares, and story views in social media tools are also of the same pattern.

 As per the ancient wisdom of this wonderful country, a balanced life is divided into 4 parts Dharma(Righteousness), Artha(pursuit of material needs), kama(fulfillment of desires), and Moksha (liberation and freedom). In early life one learns and practices Dharma throughout life, subsequently, one earns livelihood and lives a social life in the middle age along with the fulfillment of desires(Kama refers not only to sexual desires but all desires) and finally enters the path of pathless liberation in old age. There were some conflicts as Artha and Kama are accumulation and fulfillment but Moksha is renunciation of everything, so kind of they were divided equally in their lifetime by age to bring about some order and balanced life. We are bringing this point here as today our lifestyles have changed completely as we focus only on accumulation and fulfillment. 

 In reality, desires are never-ending as soon as we fulfill one desire, the other rises, and so on, so on. To bring about tranquility in the mind is only possible through Moksha(liberation or freedom), traditionally this path was set up after 50 years of age, but if one is mentally ready and serious about life, they can practice it anytime, freedom comes into being by not running away from all things, but to face the world as is and understand about oneself and the surroundings completely bringing a much deeper insight. Freedom comes into being not by getting, but only by giving. This is possible through constant attention and awareness about one's thoughts, mind, circumstances, and surroundings. 

 If we might have noticed, whenever we get a sense that someone is watching us we tend me more aware and our actions are more disciplined, in the same way, we are inquiring that without an external intervention if we are watching the movement of mind and thoughts ourselves, what would happen?!

 As we pointed earlier in this article, the most available way to solve the problems of the mind is to change a reward with another reward, such as if we sleep too often, change it with another reward which we love, maybe anything singing, dancing, writing, painting, etc. But the liberation of the mind is a different and deeper process, either one gets dissolved completely in the activity that one does, just like camphor when lit dissolves completely. 

 When one watches one's mind without any evaluation bad or good, that is attention, thought may drift from one thing to another, but to watch it continuously even the movement of distraction is still attention. That attention can last for some moments or some minutes or some hours based on the quality of attention. When one thinks to hold onto attention that existed, it becomes a product of thought, but as long as one flows with the movement of attention, many things flower automatically, one can see it for oneself, and eventually thought slows down making the mind completely still, leading to having an abundance of energy. In this beautiful awareness, one can have deeper relationships with oneself, with one's family, and so on. Essentially we would start seeing things as they are and not we are, so in that quietness of mind, we can interact deeply. K has pointed many times if we are lucky the visions of truth can come to one in tremendous attention, the writer prays for all including him in this regard. Extending from the opening points on the movement of the mind, in tremendous attention, one can feel the complete aloneness in which truth can come into being if we are lucky, just like we prepare the land for the harvest, a completely attentive and silent mind is a fertile land for the truth to come. Happened to hear from one of K's talks the etymology of alone means all one, aloneness is a state of complete integration with each being with which we come into contact.

 And in fact, the death to this body means nothing until the 'Me' created by the mind perishes voluntarily on its own, which is true Moksha. The end of the 'Me' is a new beginning to which is eternal and immortal.

 I would like to end on this note and pray & wish everyone whoever reading this a happy and joyful life forever because joy is our true nature.

“That is full, this is full,

From that fullness comes this fullness,

If you take away this fullness from that fullness,

Only fullness remains”

~Isha Upanishad