Today in my email was my daily subscription to a daily hindu message from Beliefnet. It read:
Meditation is needed
Only when the mind is distracted
By false imagining.
Knowing this,
I am here.
Without joy or sorrow,
Grasping at nothing, spurning nothing,
O Master, I am here.
-Ashtavakra Gita 12:3-4
From "The Heart of Awareness: A Translation of the Ashtavakra Gita," by Thomas Byrom, 1990. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston. www.shambhala.com.
I especially liked the first part - meditation is needed when we distract ourselves with false imaginings. It reminded me of Max Ehrmann's Desiderata. This passage in particular:
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
There are so many things in life that we will never understand yet our mind tries so desperately to make sense of it all. To justify things, to understand them, to make things better. Learning how to recognize the mental chaos that comes with false imaginings is hard.
Learning how to actually quite the chaos isn't any easier.
How do you recognize when your mind is racing with things that are best left alone?
How do your false imaginings impact those around you?
How does emotional chaos impact your health?
How do you move out of emotional chaos and into emotional intelligence?
Think about your false imaginings, the mental and emotional chaos that your mind is creating for you and try to identify some way to turn it around into something intelligent.
Ready?
Set?
Go....
“And as paralyzing and upsetting as all the never agains were, the final leaving felt perfect. Pure. The most distilled possible form of liberation. Everything that mattered except one lousy picture was in the trash, but it felt so great. I started jogging, wanting to put even more distance between myself and school. It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” ― John Green , Paper Towns
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