CONTROLLING THE MIND AND SENSES AND WHAT ARE ITS BENEFITS

 

Our body, as we all know by experience is intimately bound to the senses that play a pivotal role in all our activities both physical and mental. As sentient beings, we are conditioned by the strongest belief that we exist because of our physical form the body.  The manifestation of its functioning is thru our senses. Any activity that a person engages in throughout his waking hours of the day, incurs the deployment of one or more of these five senses, that gets attached to the thought of the ensuing corresponding activity. This results in the generation of an emotion that navigates the thought to a particular direction, culminating in the execution of that activity.

Anything that the mind finds pleasurable generates a positive emotion of happiness or motivation and conversely, when he finds anything unpleasant or sorrowful, it generates a negative emotion of despair, shock, unhappiness or frustration. If it would have been possible to always give a choice to human beings, they most certainly would have preferred the former to maintain the continuity of their happiness. But since everything in nature is ever-changing, whether it is in the mind or the surrounding environment, this makes this an implausible proposition. Furthermore, even physical ailments induce unhappiness. But in this article, we would be focussing on the mental aspects only.  The very bases of functioning of the physical world are always to be in a dynamic state of flow and thus are transient or impermanent and hence are subject to continuous change. This demands an adaptation of human beings to this situation of perpetual impermanence. But unfortunately, it does not happen easily with most people, because they are normally mentally fragile and hence get upset at the slightest knowledge of even a forthcoming adverse situation or the one being experienced in the present. And this throws him into a state of gloom, despair or sorrow. The reason why this happens is that man is more focused on the external world and from there, any event which he senses as unpleasant, sorrowful or fearful generates the stimuli which activates the senses that directly impact emotions and the consequent response manifested by a swing in the emotional state in the negative direction.

Most people normally live in a state in which the mind function, in what is termed as the auto-pilot mode. In this, the mind is not in conscious control of the individual. And so is very easily driven into distraction by default to pleasant or unpleasantness in the external world. This is because, in this auto-pilot mode, the individual lacks the will and hence the power to exercise control over the thoughts generated. This leads to frequent cyclic swing in the mental states that is manifested in the mood of the person. One of the best ways to overcome this situation is by practising mindfulness which is a form of meditation. In this, the individual has to focus his mind on the inner self and in this process, the senses too get withdrawn from the external world. This leads to the pacification of the senses along with the mind. And consequently, there remains no anxiety or uncertainties of the future nor the repentance of the past failures. This happens, because in this condition mind dwells in the present moment both physically and mentally i.e. in the “Here and Now”. And by so doing the individual can control his mind from the distractions of the external world. He learns to focus on the inner self which brings the harmony of the mind and the body. The biggest benefit that a person can get is, it brings about the alleviation of his suffering in the adverse situation by the enhanced level of adaptability that he develops.