Imagine that your life is a complete mess. Relationships are strained, finances are in ruins, and health issues are raised. Nothing exciting is in store. There are two ways you can get out of this situation: one with the mind and one without.

Before you look at the mind solution, you must first understand that the so-called mind is a conditioned organ. It is conditioned to think in a certain way. It has absorbed all of its ideas and beliefs from the society. Decipher how it all started. Try to think about something you don’t know. You won’t be able to. Think about ‘space’ as an example. Your mind will conjure up thoughts with help from the inputs it has received through the sense organs — the school text books, the space programmes heard on TV, space auditorium shows, and so on. Now imagine the word is ‘epacs’. Your mind will go blank. It cannot generate any associated thoughts because it has never been conditioned on this word. We all attempt to condition ourselves when we read self-help books about affirmations, positivity, and other topics. We make an effort to stifle negative thoughts and introduce positive ones into our minds.

Therefore, the primary cause for any feeling is the way in which the corresponding thoughts have been conditioned. The main cause of any negative feeling, including sadness and jealousy, is the ‘success’ that has been ingested into your brain. You have been conditioned to believe that obtaining xyz, acquiring a car, travelling abroad, or making xyz in income constitutes success. From school on, your brain has been exposed to not so always healthy competition. But knowing that it is just a play of your mind, you can try to defeat it in its own game. Determine what makes the negativity go away. During the difficult times, you most likely accomplished three or four worthwhile goals that you would not have been able to accomplish otherwise: you spent time with your parents, learned a new skill, attempted an endeavour that you had always wanted to but others had not been able to, gained a deeper understanding of life, etc.

Thus, you can attempt to overcome the mind with the mind. Use the previous conditioning and the definition of success to identify points that meet the success criteria and overcome the negatives that may have happened.

However, the conditioning based mind solution is only a temporary solution. This is why most of the self-help books also only produce a temporary effect. Sometimes life can be really difficult, and you may find it hard to let go of things or to come up with a clever mental trick to help you get over the failure you are going through — for example, losing something or someone, or suffering several material losses at once. You will come face to face with the construct of the impermanence of all things. It is during these periods that you discover your life’s purpose to develop spiritually. This is when it is time to distance yourself from the mind and know its working better. It is nothing but a game being played in the mind based on each one’s individual biochemical makeup. The brain sees things, gets conditioned based on the inputs from friends, family, media, teachers, and other sources. And as previously mentioned, it begins comparing its accomplishment to this conditioning. Consider what you want to do or think about even right now. The options that appear are from the same small pool of choices to which your mind was habituated. It’s a set pattern of neurological connections. This is one realisation that can help you move away from the mind. This intellectual knowledge (through various readings and observation) combined with your practice of silence for deeper realisation can reap results faster and help you move away from the mind more quickly. The three pronged approach to spiritual breakthrough will detail on this further. Now you can consciously influence your mind. You can let thoughts pass and use it when you like. You will stop trying to suppress negative thoughts as you know that it only strengthens those thoughts. You will let the pattern play its natural course. You will not be affected by the mind. You will have seen through it.

Each one of us is unique and to experience good and bad about life is as much a given as the change of weather to happen.  As a child, I used to play this game wherein you blow a soap bubble through the bubble blow stick and multiple bubbles are set afloat in all directions  – some far, some near, some left, some right, some down. Some big, some small, some robust, some burst. They might change their way along the path as the wind picks up. But they are all unique expression of the original bubble. Similarly, we are all expressions of the life energy. A bubble of life with inherent genes and conditioning that powers us to our potential limits. Each of us is unique. There is no right or wrong. Looking at where the other bubble reaches is an absolutely waste of time. Just keep working to your potential when your bubble is in an adverse territory. You really had no control on the bubble reaching there. The original force (the higher power) made you reach here. It is absolutely right to say it’s God’s will and there never was a right time to connect with your spirit. This comparison with the soap bubble is really apt and you will find confidence in it as you contemplate further through choices you have made in life. When you go beyond the mind, you will realise that there really was no choice. You were just floating like a bubble when blown with the force of genes and conditioning. Let Life Flow. Even the impact that an event can have upon you when you are completely associated with the mind is not in your control because every event triggers its own biochemical reactions within your body that ultimately determine your final feelings and emotions. This can only be known once the distancing happens from the mind. Life is not about using your willpower to go against the direction that your bubble is destined towards. Be wise and use your willpower to power your life’s expression in your pursuits and accept the inevitable with open arms and humility.

Mind cannot be understood by the mind. There is a journey into silence that is being constantly played out in your life and which inevitably gains visibility during the painful times. It is making you go further into this journey by forcing you to delve deep within. The real power comes from within – when you realise you are the awareness accountable to watch life’s expression manifest itself in your physical realm. Watch all that happens to you with poise and serenity.