Sometimes the most mundane moment leaves a learning that lasts...
I have had a very sedentary lifestyle since an year and am attempting to pull my socks up now;but the problem is that it's not as easy as it sounds. While jogging today I realized there's some semblance of a tiny voice inside my head that tries to control my actions (for example, reducing my pace of run by giving lame justifications that seek to garb my mental weakness). After a few hundred meters and conscious efforts to subdue this voice's indications, my understanding of what's happening in my head gradually increased and I realized it's not a singular voice but a set of thoughts that consistently knock each other out in my head.
And then my hippy imagination (of late, subdued by the sarkari work) took its wings...
I could imagine my head as a closed room with hundreds of super-bouncy crazy balls banging each other inside it.These super energetic (and annoyingly bouncy) crazy balls contain thoughts that color them and the mind acts as a room made of projector-screen walls that contains hundreds of such balls striking against one another and against the screens in an environment filled with chaos. What seemed like a "tiny voice", now seemed like a dominant and attractive ball of thought ("मोह"?) that hits the screen the hardest and leaves an image. The mind's existence thus appeared to be an unending competition between the crazy balls of attractive thoughts to leave an imprint on our mental screens. ("मायाजाल"?).
After a further hundred meters of physical struggle I could imagine an alternate cognitive system wherein the mind is not a closed, restricted environment where things get stuffy, turbulent and dissipative ("तनाव"?) but an open environment where multiple thoughts exist independently with minimum possible entropy. Gradual dropping of the futile thirst for mental activity will allow a peaceful life, devoted to the present moment. Such an alternate environment will allow one to look at the finer, subtler elements of life and one's existence ("ध्यान"?).
The fatigue in the mental system is created by entropy and the energy loss through futile competitive efforts of various thoughts while they fend for domination in order to run the show (i.e. influence our decisions). The thoughts balls can easily be utilized in a less energy-consuming fashion using an idea of a person who acts as an owner of the tool that is the mind. This person will attach itself to the idea of a super-structure, the Self ("अहम"?). This Self will act as the person who controls and uses the mind as a tool to further his life's goals ("आत्म-विकास"?). He will use the mind as a machine, according it importance based on its functional utility but never identifying himself with the machine.
The practice of Vipassana Meditation, as "re- discovered" by Gautam Buddha and guided by Shri Goenka focuses on this approach and leads to a natural reduction in entropy. It only suggests one to look at one's natural breath without influencing it purposefully. Just as it takes a while for a crazy ball to drop its momentum on its own, the mind's habit of thought-hunting doesn't cease immediately; Vipassana guides that whenever the mind is swayed towards a thought (i.e. one of those crazy balls dominate and leaves an impression on the screens), just calmly bring it back to the awareness of one's breath. With time and practise, the projector-screens lose their importance in decisions making (as the balls lose momentum without any external push) and the mental walls slowly dissolve, making the mind an open-system. Meanwhile, the practice of looking at the breath naturally leads to a stronger sense of self that was, until now, hidden behind the chaos. This sense of self allows one to calmly use the mental system and increase its efficiency by getting maximum work done using minimum energy.
Thus, with a stronger sense of self and a calmer mind, the intuitive voices become clearer and one begins to better understand one's purpose.
In a "nut"-shell, the key to happiness and a carpe-diem lifestyle is how well you handle your crazy balls!
