Mental Discipline Is A Ceaseless Process
Your mind is challenged by every change of weather, every new person you meet, every food you eat.
You wake up early and chant that impactful mantra of yours. You turn to that part of your favorite book that you have so passionately underlined. You close your eyes and drink in your favorite feeling. Now you feel good. You feel clear. You feel stable.
‘Life isn’t that tough after all,’ you say to yourself and go about your business.
Yet, during the day as you sit burping the essence of your lunch, you feel agitated. Confused. Things have gone disarray again! Your mantra doesn’t work, your favorite quote doesn’t seem to have the potency it had earlier.
‘This mind and life is a sick thing! Why this suffering?’ you question yourself.
‘I had done the rightful deed this morning,’ you say.
Same is with your life.
In your early youth, you have done all the correct things. You have worked your ass off to get educated, get fit, get disciplined. You have acquired knowledge, experience, friends, etc.
‘I will do the right things and life will be great,’ you had said to yourself while pushing yourself hard at the most difficult parts.
Yet, as you sit burping the essence of the same lunch, you feel agitated. Confused. Things have gone disarray again! Your education hasn’t given you the wisdom it seemed to promote, your income doesn’t seem to have the potency it had promised!
‘This mind and life is a sick thing! Why this suffering?’ you question yourself.
‘I had done all the correct things’, you say.
Then why do you suffer?
It is because you have approached mental discipline like a painkiller. It is unlike physical discipline in that a dose in the morning won’t work for the entire day. A routine in youth doesn’t attach forever. Physical changes are more stable, like a lake. While, blood and bones are resistant to rapid and random change — as a drop of ink in a small part of a lake is likely to remain in a small periphery for longer — thoughts are something that never the same remain! The knowledge of…
