Worry or enjoy life. Yes, it is either or. Whenever your mind takes a trip into the past or the future,it is a trip into “airy nothing” and the destination is “unhappiness”. The trip is all about the hopeless effort to control imagined future events which defy control because they just don’t exist, they are random thoughts.
Worrying is directionless thinking. Negative thoughts breathe life into phantoms that terrorise you with their false sense of reality. Your wild imaginations are not the oracle of the Delphi. Can your mind predict the future? Some other design beyond the reach of the mind, is ready to play out. So why allow the termite thoughts to gnaw your body hollow?
The choice to worry or not is definitely yours,but even when you have absolutely no control over future happenings, you generally choose to worry!! Geeta chapter II verse 11 differentiates between thinking objectively and worrying foolishly. These are two conditions of the same mind as friend and foe.
Worry makes an enemy of your own mind and positive,constructive and objectively focussed thinking makes that very mind work like a friend. Worry snatches away the joy from the present moment. It bullies and molests the mind till it forgets all the blessings that the Lord has granted. Krishna in the Geeta begins his discourse by saying that “the wise do not grieve for anything.” Swami Chinmayanandaji says “ Grief and dejection are the prizes that delusion demands from its victims.” Krishna ends his Geeta discourse with the famous words: “MA SHUCH” (Do not worry or grieve).
An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop. Understanding that continuous change is the nature of finitude, it is unintelligent to complain. Finally, “You don’t get ulcers from what you eat. You get them from what’s eating you!” Vicki Baum.
Prarthna Saran, President, Chinmaya Mission, Delhi.
Email: prarthnasaran@gmail.com