A Cool Mind
Have you ever been in an emergency situation? Say someone you know is hurt and needs your help. How would you react initially? Panic. Shock. Fear. A range of emotions, but all these indicate the mind is disturbed. The mind is certainly not calm.
When you panic or feel shock – are you able to help the other person effectively? No. Why? because you’re not sure what to do. There is confusion. The mind cannot think straight. Your mind just goes blank. Effectively the thinking part of your mind (called ‘buddhi’) is temporarily ‘out of service’. Like when you press the button for a lift to go up to the 15th floor of a building, and the lift light flashes on saying ‘lift out of service’. The lift is not available for your use, so you lose its benefit. Similarly, your mind is temporarily ‘out of service’ so you cannot benefit from the knowledge and thinking capability it has when you really need it.
Point here is: when the mind is not calm, we cannot think clearly and make good decisions. BUT…when the mind is calm…what happens? Are we able to think and reason and make good decisions? Yes – certainly. Therefore, keeping a calm mind in all situations is very important in life. Stay cool. How to stay cool in all situations? There is an elaborate and brilliant method for accomplishing this given to us in the Bhagavad Gita called – Karma Yoga. And the outcome of this Karma Yoga method is a cool mind – Gita 2.48: samatvam yoga uchyate = calmness of mind in good and bad situations is Karma Yoga. i.e. stay cool.
So there is a very critical chain of events here which all starts with a cool and calm mind:
- Karma Yoga leads to Calm Mind (citta-suddhi)
- Calm mind leads to alert thinking (parikshya-lokan)
- Alert thinking leads to realising the deeper truths about life (atma-viveka)
- Realisation of these deeper truths, leads us to ultimate peace (moksha).
Therefore, stay cool. Keep calm. Be happy.
Om Tat Sat
Aditya
