my brain my enemy
As per our Ancient Mythologies, it has been said in Scriptures that when the Prakriti or Nature was being created, three different types of beings were formed. One being the Trees, plants or bushes which were entirely under the control of nature with neither brain nor movement of their own. They were obliged to stay attached to Earth with no neurotic activity other than what was fundamentally charged to them. Then came the Animals, which were given the freedom of movement but refrained from the gift of brain activity. Their brains were pre-programmed to be oriented around the goal of finding food and shelter no matter what the way will be. Emotions like sympathy, empathy, pain for others, jealousy or even greed were absent in these beings. Then finally the beings called Humans were created who were gifted with both movement and mind. They were capable of both moving around with their will and thinking, contemplating and analyzing the situations. Human brain was created to be the smartest of all. It was with this human mind that we humans created all the possibilities around us, imagined the unimaginable and even gave a shape, name and form to our Creator.
Brain is the most efficient and most mysterious organ of human body. Biologically speaking, it is the central organ of human nervous system and a bundle of 100 billion neurons but satirically speaking it is the only thing that has named its own self. Though philosophically speaking, it is the junction where positive, negative and neutral thoughts cross, sometimes together and sometimes one by one with one particular thought occurring consecutively. Such is the power of brain that it can create dopamine, i.e. the satisfaction of happiness giving hormone or it can go into a deep slumber of darkness where nothing feels right. In the Harry Potter series, the Author JK Rowling had specifically added the character of Dementor, a magical creature that would guard the Prison of Azkaban and their characteristic being their ability to feed on human emotion and memories of happiness, leaving their prey with nothing but all the worst experiences of his life. The prey would feel so helpless and lost that nothing good was ever going to happen. When interviewed about this one particular character, the Author said that the inspiration for it came from her personal experience with depression. But coincidently the only spell to save oneself from a Dementor is “Expecto Patronum” which requires the conjurer to think of a very powerful positive memory and use that energy to fight away the creature. Such is the might of human brain that it can find itself stuck in a void from where it only knows the way out.
There are circumstances when we tend to feel stuck and as if there is no way that we will be able to get out it anytime soon or with any ease. Lets take an example of a college student who bagged admission in the city’s most prestigious college. His parents were the happiest in the world as this admission meant a bright future for their son and since the college had a great reputation, a nice package salary was probable in the future. Everyone around them were praising their son for such a great feat and how special their son was to get selected amongst lakhs of students who had appeared for the entrance examination. One year went pretty well and all was good except the fact that their son was no more interested in continuing with the course he was doing. He realized that though he did clear the entrance with flying colors but that stream was not pleasing him anymore. He was tired and frustrated from the tough formulas he had to study everyday and so we went ahead and conveyed his thought of dropping out from his college to his parents. This news came as an entire shock to his parents as they were never expecting their son to drop out from such a reputed college and pursue something about which even he was clueless at the moment. “What will happen of his future now? Will we ever find a job now? He hasn’t even decided what to pursue next, how can one be so clueless in life. When will he complete his studies? What will the neighbors say? People will laugh at us that even after such a huge college admission our son thought of dropping out” were some thoughts in his parents mind. But still for their son’s happiness they agreed to his decision of dropping out of college. Their fears did came true that their son was clueless about what to do and so for coming one year he was just trying to find his calling out there but after a year or so what he came up with was what we know as Apple and their son would be the infamous Steve Jobs.
It is just at that pristine moment of trouble that our brain fogs and stops thinking. What we can only focus on are the negatives, problems or cons of the situation. Its just what, why, when and how and at this very moment we lie at the border of turning a small problem into a huge one. If we stumble and fall into this vicious trap then what follows are the creations of our own mind. Let’s understand this by continuing the above example. Had the parents stopped their son and forced him to continue his college and probably after completing the degree, think of taking something new in his life. This would have led to even more frustration of their son and probably him taking up extreme ways of getting off the stress. Even if he would have completed his degree, he would have remained clueless for years subsequent to it and that too at a time when his age would have been the one where his batchmates would be earning and he would be sitting confused with a college degree in his hand that he does not even value. All these situations would end up creating repercussions in the house and within the family with a probable downfall in the mental health of all the members as well. Just one extra step of our mind can create our future problems. It is at that certain moment that our brain considers the situation to be dead end but with a simple expansion of the vision and widening of the perspective, the solution of the problem lies beside the problem itself.
When at one point the ability of human mind to create all the possibilities as we see them around us has been considered commendable in the ancient scriptures but at the same point the ability of human mind to create scenarios of fear, cowardice, jealousy, greed, power, destruction and lust has been sought to be destroyed. It is our brain that creates fear when it observes someone stronger than itself approaching, that like a dog wags its tail when its master gets happy and whines when it is ignored by its master, that feels jealous when someone besides us gets a bigger piece of fortune, that feels the desire to grab that bigger piece of fortune, that desires the innate power to control everything it sees, touches or feels, destroy what comes in its path and lust for what satisfies it.
Such disastrous creations of the brain have to be kept at distance. Practice whatever is available at your ends, be it yoga, meditation, any hobby like reading or painting but control the horses of the brain to not run haywire into trouble, but be calm and composed especially in a tense situation so as to take a decision with precision and not in fright. Its just this moment that requires highest level of patience so as to decide the entire situation and its outcome. One right step and the problem will be solved even before would realize.
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