Positively handling negative ripples in the mind
I was in the 10th grade, feeling the social pressure of excelling in academics, perhaps for the first time, with the aim of getting into one of the prestigious IIT colleges in India. The competition was intense and the stress and anxiety within me was slowly creeping up. My restless self would usually resort to playing cricket or going for walks, but now that I had to do double duty with school work and post-school prep for my dream college, not withstanding the crazy amount of travel between home, school and college-prep coaching, leaving home at 7 in the morning and coming back home at 10 in the night— I was stumped on how to calm my restless mind?!!
I had been initiated into a meditative chanting practice in my 9th grade. It usually left me in a peaceful and positively charged state. But one of those stressful days in my final year of high school, when I sat down to do the chanting — I found to my astonishment that instead of calming down the negative ripples of stress, restlessness and anxiety in my mind, it just amplified some of my fears and worries. It was so bizzare! How could something so positive as a mantra (a special sound vibration that calms and soothes the mind), have an opposite effect??
I was getting a peek into my subconscious mind, thanks to the chanting, and I didn’t like I what I saw — Nor did I have the spiritual know-how to understand the subtlety of the phenomenon that was happening to me or know what to do with it! I was getting a graduate-level math lesson in real analysis, while I had barely grasped the fundamentals of calculus. I was clearly out of my league here.
The divine conspiracy for world peace!
Fast-forward 19 years. I was attending one of the biggest and grandest, positively impacting event ever organized in USA towards the mission of furthering global peace, dealing with mental health issues, curbing nerve-wracking school violence and upholding shared human values — America Meditates
The evening of the event, the clouds were dark blue, beautiful and picture perfect — What a back-drop to have on this day, July 24th 2019 when hundred thousand people in 100 cities across the US came together to do a massive synchronized meditation with global peace leader and humanitarian Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
The dark clouds of stress and anxiety that baffled me in my 10th grade were reminiscent of how important this event was — Gurudev has often mentioned that to bring lightness to a dark room, all we need to do is flip the switch.
And the switch that we got to experience that day was that of a beautiful guided meditation — Millions of people from 100 countries tuned into the webcast having the collective intention of a stress-free, violence-free society world over. As if in cue, the sun peeked out of the clouds right after the meditation to give us a celestial light show.
What can be more powerful than to have been a part of this event ? What phenomenal ripples of positivity would this event have generated in the collective human consciousness? I can only wonder!! And time will tell.
The mind has a mind of its own…
The spiritual path is full of surprises and wonders — And the biggest of them is getting to know one’s own mind. Do we really understand our own mind? Do we understand how we get stressed, where do we catch onto anxiety? Do we know when we are happy and what situations triggers negative emotions in us? Do we know when we let the anxiety balloon to a point that it affects our very functioning in this world? Do we as a society understand the ramifications of letting mental health issues slip under the rug? Stats show that 40% of the European population is under depression, despite having all the material comforts and conveniences. Isn’t that bizzare? It only validates that happiness and health is an internal state and doesn’t necessarily depend on material affluence. If policy makers, educators, teachers and leaders don’t understand the severity of mental health issues such as depression, suicidal tendencies, anxiety based disorders that plague our society — How can we hope to bring solutions on a massive scale and further global peace, reduce gun violence and take everyone along as one happy global family?
With the expert guidance of global luminaries in mental health and spirituality, such as Gurudev, it becomes much easier to navigate the ripples in our mind that surface from the subconscious — Gurudev to me has been a guiding light, as he is for millions around the world, shedding light on the intricacies of the mind through his youtube channel, his books and through guided meditations such as the one we experienced on the occasion of America Meditates.
Creating positive ripples of peace
It is said that the mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Which will it be is entirely in our hands! Tools such as breathing, meditation and spiritual wisdom taught under the expert guidance of those who walked this path are so invaluable in handling the negative ripples in the mind and helping us stay vibrant, happy and productive. If not for these practices, I would have been struggling with anxiety for years or decades, while today inner peace fills my heart on a regular basis making me an agent of peace to people around me. The wish that is welling up in my heart right now is that hundreds of millions of people take to breathing practices and meditation and see its benefits first hand — For, each person that takes to meditation, adds to the positive ripple and at some point, the switch will flip, as humanity moves irreversibly from pockets of hatred to a global garden of peace, from tolerance to acceptance and love, and from darkness to light.
Peace and Love! Karthik