WHAT IS ON YOUR MIND?

 "Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation"...Rabindranath Tagore.

The famous quote "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" was a part of a campaign slogan used by the United Negro College Fund in 1972 and has remained unchanged for more than forty years. The phrase has become an American vernacular and is being used by laymen and educators alike to drive home the point perhaps for the sake of lack of compromise of education.

2500 years ago, one man and his followers believed undeniably that the mind conquers all.
Buddha believed every living being has the same basic wish - to avoid suffering. Human evolution has altered our direction, making us extend seeking the path to happiness externally instead of internally. We have made material things our priority which has further betrayed our love and trust for ourselves so much that our perspectives of life have become shallow.
We now look up to our high status jobs, dream houses, fancy clothes etc. We believe food and money bring us happiness, whereas they are the cause of our unhappiness.

"The mind is everything, what you think you become"...Buddha.

Barack Obama apparently played a mind game of sort when he contested and won the American presidential election as the first ever  "Black" President of the United States. His courage and conviction forcefully made people think outside the box, breaking the barriers of negatively stereotypes that encompassed the western community for centuries. He believed in change, and naturally like an enthusiastic and a leader with charisma, he was able to convince people to share his colossal school of thought.

All our experiences, perceptions, sensations, dreams, thoughts and feelings are forms appearing in consciousness. It doesn't always seem that way.
When you see a tree, it seems as if you are seeing a tree directly, but science tells us something completely different is happening. Light which enters the eye triggers chemical reaction in the retina, producing electro-chemical impulses which travel along nerve fibers to the brain, the brain analyzes the data it receives and then produces its own image of what it is, that is when you experience seeing a tree.

What you are actually experiencing is not a tree itself, only the image that appears in the mind.

 

"A good man out of the good treasures of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of his evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45) 

Who are the good people, and who are the bad ones?
The answer lies in our mind. Basically, the appearance and activities of a society is determined by the state of mind of her citizens.
Factors such as accent, style, fashion, beliefs and so on largely preach just that.
Good and bad can be in some sort of way considered relative terms along the same perspective of true and untrue events.
An example of this is "The sun rises and sets", truth is the sun is actually stationary, it is the Earth that revolves around it, making "the sun rises and sets" a mere personal truth, what we choose to believe due to what we see and experience. Its all in the mind, what is easy for the larger population to understand and live with, so that we can do loads of things together along the same line of thought (Equilibrium of thought actually).
So it may be safe to say if we could take the pain to study the state of mind of criminals and travel back in time to analyze their experiences, perhaps we just might find an ounce of justification. If we put ourselves in their shoes, maybe we would do worse, it is the state of mind.
The mind has been compared in many instances with the fertile soil, words and images are it's seeds, when planted, they grow like a carelessly planted acorn which grows into a gigantic oak tree which unconsciously takes control of our lives.
This is why it is wrong to do several wrong things in presence of the kids, because their minds are the most fertile, and they will like to practice virtually everything they see.

Education, exposure and enlightenment have however been proven factors that help our minds to be free, as somewhere inside of us is a yearn for self fulfillment which spurs us to out of free will inconvenience ourselves, even in pain to get something important done. It is all in the mind.
So, what is on your mind?

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom"...Albert Einstein.

Akin Abimbola. (akinzogee@gmail.com)

SOURCE: Google.
                  Famous Quotes.
                  Ashley Johns (The Mind is Everything)
                  Peter Russel (Spirit of Now)
                  The Holy Bible.