Harvesting the mind's potential
The earth is blessed with an immense amount of land which now supports over 7 billion humans. Assuming each consumes on average three meals a day, that is over 21 billions meals every day that the earth needs to provide. The mind is even more vast than the physical place humans inhabit. In the mind, we consume several thousand thoughts every hour. Billions of people times several thousand thoughts per hour equate to a tremendous amount of mental energy. Farming is now highly efficient and mechanized. Otherwise, we would not be able to feed these many people. Just as we have made agriculture and crop yield a science that ultimately helps feed and keeps the physical body healthy, with the right “farming” methods, we can tap into the infinite collective potential of the human mind.
We use a lot of the mind’s energy to keep ourselves happy. With the right outlook, awareness, and insight we may find that we need very little of the mind’s help to maintain a level of happiness that makes us feel light and healthy at all times. Why is it essential to keep this state of joy that has little to do with the mind?
Everything in existence is interdependent. Humans are no exception. Without first being happy, we cannot help others or contribute to the growth and maintenance of life on earth. How we lead our lives on a day to day basis has an impact on the world in gross and subtle ways. The ripples from our thoughts and actions reach much further than we may ever imagine. When thinking follows actions, we may not be able to control the outcome or the consequences. When thought precedes action, our efforts may become highly beneficial to the world.
A farmer does not live for himself or herself. A good portion of the crop yield enters the food network locally or globally. Whatever we eat, has been touched directly or indirectly by another hand that has worked the land to produce food. A farmer plants seeds that are likely to provide a high yield, all for the benefit of strangers that that farmer will likely never meet. When we identify with a thought, that becomes a seed which we plant in the mind. Through force of habit, we remain forgetful about being aware of the thoughts that deeply resonate with us. If those thoughts are of the right kind, we get a yield of happiness down the road. If they are corrupt, we may suffer from mental misery. Happiness and suffering are experienced on the mental plane. We create much of that happiness or suffering through our thoughts and actions.
We are often are surprised at the unpredictability of our mental state. When we expect to be happy, we may become unhappy and vice versa. To a farmer, the type of crop that will be harvested in due course is no surprise as the seed is known. In our case, the mental yield at any given time is not easily predictable as the seeds sown have long been forgotten. It may be inefficient to plant several different crops on the same plot of land. Each plant may have different needs in regards to climate, water and so on. Unlike traditional farming where one type of seed is planted in a given area resulting in substantial and uniform crop yield, in the mind, the “planting” is done haphazardly, and often conflicting thoughts are seeded in the same place. The mind is a vibrant soil where thoughts we identify with instantly take. The mind rejects nothing. They may not sprout and grow immediately, but in due course, we will have a harvest of new thought forms. The continuous stream of thoughts we encounter in our conscious state is a manifestation of seeding done in the past.
Majority of humans may have moved away from an agrarian existence externally, but internally we remain as farmers. No farmer will waste his or her piece of land by planting and watering weeds. They are quickly removed, and every bit of arable land is cultivated with crops that bring some value. It takes hard work and persistence to keep weeds from taking over space where valuable plants may be grown. Similarly, we can remove weeds amongst thoughts. With any thought, we can observe, stay neutral and accept them or we can stamp them, with our power to make a choice, as liked or disliked. The moment we label any thought it gets imprinted in the mind, and just as a mysterious force turns a seed into a tree, a simple thought can turn into a fastidious habit which ultimately may decide the course our lives take. Such is the potential power in each thought.
We tend to be careless with how we deal with the mind’s potential. There is no immediate price we pay for entertaining the wrong type of thoughts. It takes patience, time and effort to cultivate and harvest the potential of good thoughts. We are lucky in that the mind has no finite borders. If we find it difficult to “replant” seeds in areas of the mind densely overgrown with habits from the past, we can with effort and persistence move our awareness to another part of the mind and make a fresh start. The mental soil is fertile, and the world may benefit from a good harvest.
