Thoughts: our spiritual money

Hari Om.

I was recently reflecting on the subject of thoughts. They are so subtle, one can't see them or touch them....most of us struggle to control them. Yet they are the very basis of our experience of life, our speech and our actions.....and therefore, our happiness, sadness, success, failure, everything really!

Strange how we don't learn how to manage our thoughts when we are in school. The only time mainstream society seems to bother about helping people to learn to think properly is in cases of patients with serious mental health issues such as depression, anger management problems, obsessive-compulsive disorders etc. Such patients are offered various types of therapies to help change their thought processes which are harming them and others- one such therapy that is quite successful is "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy".

But what about the rest of us who may not have such serious mental health diagnoses, but also suffer the same problems to an extent e.g. sadness/anger/fear etc are all emotions that trouble us from time to time in life. I personally think all people should be taught how to manage their thoughts in a healthy way- eg how to deal with angry thoughts in a healthy way (should I punch a wall, punch someone or maybe listen to some music and calm down? Lots of people have no clue how to handle powerful emotions. Even if we know what to do with our anger, it can be so difficult to practice. (My husband will vouch for this....after we've had a shouting match.... fortunately not that common but this does happen, I'm ashamed to say).

So it's crazy! We live in a world of perpetual thought- our thoughts and other people's thoughts (we are exposed to others' thoughts via their speech/actions).  But we barely know how to control them.

As sadhakas, we sit for half an hour to concentrate- we mostly wrestle with our minds during this time, and at the end often think, phew that's over for now, that was hard work. Of course at other times, it may be more easy/pleasant to concentrate, but on the whole, it is no easy task.

And yet, the Gurus say, from the spiritual perspective, if one wants spiritual success, then thought is spiritual money, thought is the Way to the Goal, to God. Thought is a very valuable resource, the golden key to Moksha/Nirvana.

We've all probably heard sayings such as "time is money", "Penny wise, Pound foolish" (meaning being careful about saving the small change/pennies, but being careless with the bigger currency/pounds)....the Indian equivalent would of course be "Paisa wise, Rupee foolish".

In the spiritual world, thought is spiritual money. (Yes in spiritual life, time is money, but thought is even bigger money). You get spiritual success by thinking of God. Oh how easy it sounds, but how difficult it is. Just think of it and you get it! But there is a caveat. You have to think of it, *all the time*. Not so easy now. You have to think of God all the time to get Him.

So if thoughts are spiritual money, how are we spending ours? The more spiritual money we spend on God, i.e. the more we think of God,  the closer we draw to Him/Her and the higher our chance of attaining God in this lifetime.

Penny wise, pound foolish is a wise proverb that can be applied to spiritual life. If one spends half an hour in a day thinking of God, and 23.5 hours thinking of other things, then that is being spiritually 'penny wise pound foolish'. One is simply throwing away one's spiritual money, one's valuable thoughts. 

Ideally one should spend the greater part of the day thinking of God (saving the spiritual pounds), not simply spending a little time thinking of God (saving a few spiritual pennies).

So our thoughts that glide and slide this way, our thoughts that meander here and there often with little rhyme or reason, these thoughts are everything in spiritual life. They are the key to our success.

We have to get some control of them. We can't just let them go all over the place like a crazed drunken elephant.

The Gurus offer some words of caution here in mind management. They say the mind is like an elephant.....it has to sway from side to side as it walks. So let it sway...but a little, not wildly. If you try and control the mind-elephant too strictly, it will get angry and turn against you. If you leave it to its own devices,  it will go wild and play havoc with you.

Therefore we have to be wise mahouts of our mind-elephants....gently tapping it from time to time with the stick of the name of God and various spiritual practices to keep it going on the spiritual path. In this task, we are best of asking God Himself for help with controlling this difficult thing that He made. It is no easy task.

So if thought is spiritual money, I should be pretty careful how I plan my day to avoid thinking about rubbish and make sure I think about Him. I need to be picky about what I read, who I hang out with, where I go, what movies I watch....how boring this sounds, but it is exactly the advice our spiritual masters give us. They say, be picky, be choosy. Don't just let the mind-elephant go wild.

For example, this year I have been reading and following the news more avidly than previously. What has been the result? More mental agitation and stress and revulsion at the horrific things that people do. It does not help that journalists rarely report any of the good things that people do.

So after reading some of the recent world events,  my mind at one point was jumping about, saying Oh my God, how can people kill each other in the name of God....what madness! After a while, it calmed down. I began to think, the world has not been a nice place really, say for the last 1000 years of history at least. But this has not stopped many people from achieving their spiritual goals in life.

For example, Meera practiced her sadhana in the midst of an invasion of her land by people who disliked her religion, it did not stop her attaining Hari. Swami Sivananda was born in India when it was under foreign rule and he lived during the second world war- this did not stop him meditating on and attaining God. In fact, after attaining God, he was a great help to the rest of humanity in spreading the message of peace rendered powerful by his own direct experience of God.

Similarly all the spiritual masters of recent times, Ramakrishna, Ananadamayi Ma etc lived in times when the political situation in their country was very bad, where irreligion and adharma was the norm in politics. None of the disturbing world events around them could entice them into thinking too much about this. No, they thought obsessively only about one thing, i.e. God. They were very stingy with their spiritual money, with their thoughts, directing these only to God. We need to save our spiritual money like them, be stingy with our thoughts like them. We need to be able to say...I'm not going to waste my thoughts on that not-so-nice person, those bad events, whatever....I'm going to spend my thoughts wisely to get what I want, what I came here for....i.e. God.

I was therefore telling myself, ok there's war, killing and madness all over the world, so what's new? It was worse in the time of Meera, Ramakrishna and Sivananda- they lived in a land subjugated by foreign rulers. At least I have always lived in countries where I am relatively free to think and live as I want.

Why then should I spend my thoughts, my spiritual money, on horrible world events and even a possible third world war. It would be more useful for me, and possibly for the world, if I direct my thoughts to God and send out some peaceful thoughts- instead of more agitated thoughts.

So I've decided to save my spiritual money, my thoughts, a bit better from now on. In the time of Meera, I'm sure she did not spend too much time wondering about the terrible foreign invasions of her land...she wisely spent her time thinking about Hari. I think I'd best do the same. Let the messy world affairs be taken care of by that Hari who knows how to handle these.....I'll just mind my own business which is to think more of Hari...after all, that's the reason for my taking birth here.

Hari Aum Tat Sat.