“Is art of positive thinking a rocket science? It is as simple as churning cream to get butter”, says Lord Krishna

It has been my habit to read something positive, as first thing, when I get up. Yesterday, during morning walk one of my walking partner asked, “How do I fill my mind with positive thoughts. They are the most difficult thing to happen, then easily said”. It is so true.

Another person chips in, “Whenever you start the day, create a few positive thoughts in your mind. Go for a walk or get ready for the day, keeping these thoughts and thinking about them”. It is simply not happening. How easy to preach?

What a coincidence? In the evening I hit upon a video by Sister Shivani, that answered the art of creating positive thoughts. Sharing her valuable thoughts.

How do I do that?  

Sister Shivani says, “Remember, if an empty mind tries to think positive and create positive thoughts, it tires easily and in fact feels stressed. Try one day creating positive thoughts after filling your mind with positive information and the next day create positive thoughts when your mind is completely blank and see the difference. The energy and enthusiasm which you feel inside yourself after thinking deeply with a mind full of positive thoughts is much more than with an empty mind”.

She quickly adds,“The trick is that, you read something positive early morning, when your mind is empty, which will fill your mind with positive thoughts”.

This can be compared with the process of churning cream to get butter. If you try and churn an empty vessel without cream, will you get butter or if you try and churn a vessel partially filled with cream, will you get butter of a high quality? In the same way, when you have information in the mind, you build on it and multiply the positive information by adding new perspectives, and viewpoints to the knowledge. This is called churning of knowledge to create the butter of spiritual power.

So, always remember to backup positive affirmations in your mind with lots of extra information which is like a cushion on which you rest and play with the points of knowledge. It is like throwing a ball in a closed room and letting it bounce from wall to wall. In the same way, churning knowledge is not simply repeating what you have read but creating a movement of the knowledge inside the room of your mind. This helps in experiencing happiness because of that.

Such an exercise, when done over many days, creates soul power and strengthens our mind. In fact, it makes us extremely positive and free from negative and unnecessary thoughts that waste our mental energy when indulged in repeatedly.

So, taking utmost care of the mind in the early morning hours is extremely important because the absorption capacity of the mind at that time is very high. Giving instructions to it in the form of thoughts based on spiritual knowledge makes the mind soul-conscious (awareness of self). This is a training to the mind to keep its remembrance oriented towards its own spiritual self, and the entire day after that.

At any point of time on any day, if you have had a bad day, you could check how the start of that particular day was. You will realize that a bad start of the day very often leads to the remaining day being spent negatively. Also, a day which started positively in the company of your loved ones or a day which started by hearing a good piece of news or imbibing positive information or by watching a good program of spirituality on television will normally be spent positively.

On the other hand, a day which started with watching or listening to negative news on the TV of accidents, death and violence or by reading a negative piece of information or with an argument with someone will be followed by a day with negative events. Why is this so?

Recalling learnings from Bhagwat Gita, “The thoughts are given shape in the morning (ब्रह्म मुहर्त) and they act accordingly in the day after that. Also, the thoughts inside the mind in the night, before sleeping, have an influence on the state of mind the next morning and that in turn affects the whole day and is carried inside till the night. So, it is a cyclic process and to keep the cycle positive, the start must be made every morning. As they say – as the food, so the mind i.e. physical food eaten of a good spiritual feel or positive energy level or saatvik in nature influences the mind positively. On the other hand, food eaten of low energy levels or tamsic in nature will influence the mind negatively”. – जैसा आहार, वैसे विचार, वैसा ही व्यव्हार |

That holds true for physical food eaten by us. In the same way, food for thought, as they say i.e. the quality of our thoughts also influences our state of mind and complete inner state and how we feel.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist Monk sums it up, “A beautiful mind leads to a beautiful personality which shows itself through our thoughts, words and actions”.