Who Controls Your Mind?
Few people are aware of the thoughts that pass through their minds. Most thinking is done in an automatic manner. You don't even pass much attention to them. The thoughts wander sometimes like a passing ship, and sometimes they get stuck ... fixated on something.
Our minds are like a small child, who accepts, and takes for granted, whatever it sees or hears, without judgment and without considering the consequences. There are no boundaries, no watchman at the gate. Everything enters and inhabits a place. The Medulla Oblongata in the brain is like a door that is wide open unless you place Security at the entrance.
If you leave the gate wide open, and let your mind behave in this manner ... giving it complete freedom to jump from one thought to another, you will lose your freedom. This I can guarantee you.
We are constantly flooded with thoughts, ideas and information coming through the five senses, other people, the newspapers and TV. These thoughts, ideas and information penetrate the mind, whether we are aware of this process or not. And whether we are awake or not. This is why it's never a good idea to fall asleep with the TV on. While you're sleeping, anything can get in your mind.
This continuous flow of thoughts affects our behavior and reactions. It influences the way we think, our preferences, likes and dislikes. It even forms our belief system. Usually, we automatically accept these thoughts, letting them shape our life. This actually means that we lose our mental freedom. We are incarcerated, imprisoned by our thoughts.
Most people think and believe that their thoughts originate from them, but have you ever stopped and considered whether your thoughts, desires, likes and dislikes are really yours? Did it occur to you that maybe they came from the outside, from other people, and you have unconsciously accepted them as your own? Everything we are is a culmination of everything our senses have experienced.
If you do not filter the thoughts that enter your mind, you stop being a free person. and behave and act like a puppet on a string, though no one would like to admit to this. We become someone else's marionette. And they are pulling the strings.
You may object, and say that the thoughts that pass through your mind are yours, but are they? Have you deliberately and attentively created every thought that entered your mind? It is highly doubtful. So why let outside influences control your mind and consequently, your life? Why let other people's thoughts control YOUR life and mind?
Do you want to make your mind free or do you prefer to enslave it to other people's opinions and thoughts? If you leave your mind open to every thought that passes by, you put your life in other people's hands, and without realizing it, you accept their thoughts and you act in accordance with them. Thoughts are things. All thoughts will manifest into form. So when you think like someone else, you will then act and respond as someone else.
Every person is affected differently by external thoughts. Certain thoughts and ideas we ignore, and others provoke us to immediate action. Usually, thoughts concerning subjects we love have more power on us than other less desirable thoughts, but even thoughts and ideas that we don't care about ... if we are frequently exposed to them ... eventually sink into the subconscious mind and will affect us.
Everyone has desires, ambitions and dreams that he or she may foster from all the way back to their childhood. However, it is possible that these are the thoughts of parents, teachers and friends, which have lodged into their sub/unconscious mind, and were carried throughout their lives like baggage on a train.
Are these thoughts necessary? Do we need all this excessive baggage? In order to reduce the power of outside influences and thoughts on your life, you need to be aware of the thoughts and desires that enter your mind, and ask yourself, whether you really like them, and if you are willing to accept them into your life.
You do not have to accept each and every thought that enters your mind. Find out whether it is your own thought, or someone else's thought. Also, decide whether the thought is useful for you, and if it is for your own good to follow. This will lead to more control over your thinking process. Be sure that no one would be harmed, including you, by your thought(s).
It might not be so easy do at first, because the ego power of your mind will probably revolt against this control. However, if you want to be the master of your mind and of your life, you should not let other people's thoughts rule your life, unless you consciously choose so. Choose wisely.
Just a thought ...
~Justin Taylor, ORDM., OCP., DM.
My thanks to Remez Sasson
