Mind Matters!
Deep within the inner recesses of our minds buries the greatest power either waiting to crush us down or to fuel us up to our greatest achievement yet: to be the persons we always dream of! However, every golden gift yet to be discovered does not come so painlessly. We have to experience evolution in thoughts and must undergo complete cognitive reframing if we want to gain a paradigm shift--from being egocentrically blocked persons to renewed, 21st-century thinkers.
Our minds can do incredible things. It can choose which thought to entertain, and which one it needs to focus on. It has billions of neurons that can do unimaginable things. It can choose to be stagnant or free-flowing. It has a tremendous potential to learn and be educated from the University of Life. It can be sharpened, be molded, and be cultivated so it can pay respect to those who love to internalize every situation, and will not just blindly follow those who are consumer and lover of the-hubris-of-the-defeated attitude. Our mind is so vast that even the combined galaxies and universes there are outside our Milky Way can be put together inside it, and yet it has still enough room to gain intuitive wisdom to be worthy of this life; nonetheless, it can also be too narrow that it has a great tendency to dupe itself and be guilty of exclusivist understanding about the divine power. Our mind, especially when things around us seem counter-intuitive, can experience placebo effect. Aren’t we all guilty of it?
It can accept orthodox truths. It has an animalistic tendency and lust to initiate and trigger conspiracy. Its ability to think deeply is so perplexing and mysterious than what lies below the Marianas Trench. If it harnessed into another level of deep concentration, our minds can be used to mystify people and lead them into the vortex of pessimism. Fortunately, according to Pope Francis I, even a whirlpool of cynicism can be overcome with faith. It can measure human agony, but it can be used to seal a wounded soul with a flaming love, too. It can choose to call something stupid although others call it innovation. The point here is our mind can choose how it sees through things. Our minds can either refute seemingly truthful facts or embrace it thoughtlessly.
When we begin to analyze and evaluate our thoughts, we can start to experience a once-in-a-lifetime chance: blossoming independence and no more enslaving emotion! Consequently, even seemingly insurmountable tasks can be viewed as golden opportunities for personal growth and development. The truth is, every step along the way to wholeness, we may still be tempted to consider experiences as either forms of rewards or punishments; struggles could be contemplated as an exciting chronicles or depressing journeys; life’s tests could be regarded as a commencement for a higher purpose or an end in itself; demoralizing and dehumanizing moments could be associated as a Death March or as a time of renewal. How you embrace each of these events that come depends on how you may want to use your most powerful yet hidden and least appreciated asset: your mind.
We need stouthearted individuals who are firm in their beliefs that we have to continuously educate our minds. We have to multiply those people with multi-cultural minds; those who believe in the sanctity behind the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, canonization processes, and other noble initiatives to elevate those who have “beautiful minds” and sanctified souls. It is essential that we must inspire those minds who safeguard our surrounding from the overwhelming effects of bad images; after all we don’t want our young minds to experience that Lucifer Effect. We don’t want to have generations of “nature-deficit disorder” minds either; hence, I firmly believe that all, most especially the parents, should heed Richard Louv’s advice.
The truth is there are few highly-spirit individuals who conquer their fear and are willing to think outside their boxes. They wholeheartedly believe that everyone has a choice; that life is not just like the mythical golden apple where only the fairest of them all have the right to choose. They firmly believe that inner contentment is really achievable. Regardless of the bitterness they have tasted in this life, they cannot simply allow darkness to overshadow their hope that spectrum of happiness is still beaming. They are aware, however, that fear is like venom that may attack a vulnerable spirit. They know that fear, if not properly handled, is like a toxic waste; it is too poisonous for the body yet it could be addictive because it brings euphoric effects that drags them to their eternal death. Can you imagine yourself like a living dead? Yet our minds have its power to let go of this “pollutant” especially if it too heavy to be part of our system. The only question is: are you willing to let it go? Genuine happiness is really something easy if we know how to let our minds let go of those things which are not really necessary. If we envelope the center of our thoughts that true bliss is just like breathing, then definitely we can have it. You will be surprised because eventually it becomes a part of your system. Others may call it the law of attraction; I call it as a heavenly blessing.
Another bite of reality is some individuals, unfortunately, love to exercise every fiber of their minds to cultivate hatred of reason, who are addicted to grave doubts, and would rather be overwhelmed by the eerie culture of silence. Others find war like a glorious chaos, they are, however, completely conscious that the consequences of such behavior is a total poisoning of their soul, that they are experiencing sagging spirits, and they feel like living in a psycho-spiritual dungeon. Yet deep within them, whether they accept it or not, mind has its own power to protect itself; it will always find a way to get a glimpse of life and find consolation where the channel of eternal life awaits.
What about those who can control their minds over matter? I don’t know if David Blaine or Harry Huodini can be called as "the Stradivarii" of the magic world, what I am certain about is I am flabbergasted by their excellence. Is it mind over matter? I am clueless. If some mind can do some incredible things, other mind may seem admirable but actually unhealthy for personal development to really achieve self-actualization; they are those who always believe they need to save others. This superman complex may be good in cinema, but not really in real life situations.
On the other hand, there are those who are visually-challenged individuals, like the great Homer and Helen Keller, yet they believe that they are luckier because they accept that their lives are blessed with the extraordinary gift of inner vision. Those who accused Homer of corrupting the youths could not understand that his mere presence was seminal that even the walk of fame of Hollywood would not suffice to immortalize his name.
Sometimes, I find it awesome that ordinary minds understand what the intellectual paragons cannot fathom. Though they don’t possess that cosmic knowledge, yet they know how important it is to search for abounding happiness and find deeper connection with the rest of the world. They don’t need to drink the elixir of life, sprinkle themselves of the water from the fountain of youth, decode the holy grail of mathematics or achieve the precipice of perfection; they are just aware that they cannot simply berate themselves mentally even if they commit errors because they believe that life is not about “ninety-nine percent perspiration, and one percent inspiration”; they think that equilibrium is a better rule of the thumb. They want to experience the imprinted beautiful legacy of The Shawshank Redemption: a choice whether to busy dying or to be busy living! An icon in my country once said: “Filipinos are worth dying for.” I am glad somebody heartily responded that our race is also worth living for! What is the difference? It is in our mind. If we broaden our horizons, certainly we can grasp the undisputable universal truth: we are all programmed not just to die but to live a worthy life. Indeed, everything depends on how we think.
Let us also honor those political, social or media savvy people that their influences could be so compelling that even breathless souls could experience a meaningful and “purpose-driven life”. Their minds serve as bridges for other minds to believe in the innate goodness of their existence. We may not have the minds like those of Albert Einstein’s and Stephen William Hawking’s, but we can still have the chance to prove that even ordinary minds can do extraordinary things. Indeed, there is a hidden “magic” in our minds that can transform us from being an ordinary folks to being connoisseurs of our chosen fields. We may not possess with spectacular vision, photographic memory, and telekinesis like the famous Professor X or with mutant powers like the rest of the X-Men, but as transformed people who never give up in training our minds until we become what we are meant to be: minds with a purpose! Our mind, like our universe, still hides thousands of mysteries waiting to be understood; this is what makes this journey exciting after all. Kim Peek, considered as a living Google, whose mind, according to the documentary I watched in YouTube “remains mystery to the medical experts”. Is it not amazing?
What is inside your mind? Indeed, mind matters.
