Patanjali & 5 steps to master your thoughts

Patanjali offers 196 yoga sutras to increase your clarity and deepen you practice. Thought patterns are gradually mastered through learning non-attachment. Consider these five steps to begin to master your thoughts;

1) Notice whether your thoughts are colored with aversion or attraction. Do not judge. Learn to be an astute observer.

2) Nurture the lifestyle, actions, speech, and thoughts, and spiritual practices that lead in the positive direction. (rather than going in the opposite direction, away from the positive, and towards the negative).

3) Let go of the mental coloring of your thoughts that lead away from the spiritual (rather than going in the opposite direction, giving in to the attachments and aversions).

4) Raise conscious awareness to become more discerning of how you think and feel and the implications.

5) Practice consistency.  Learn to choose the wiser courses of action with deliberate intention.

Uncover innate wisdom

To meditate on something other than the self allows widsom to reveal itself.  To discover the feeling of selflessness arises on the inside.  Are you ready to embrace experiences that demonstrate how much you love yourself?  Will you accept that all you do or do not do serves you?

Everything unfolds as is predicted, not based on the visions of self-interested people, but as is meant to be.  You will recognize when trials seem unavoidable in your life.  Yet, you will also evolve to sense trials arise and test you for good reason.  Uncover the wisdom.

To ask yourself how a given situation will improve you isn't a question to pose before an experience.  Only after you  live and learn are you in a position to reflect or grasp why obstacles stood in your path.  You create obstacles to learn to overcome each of them.

From whichever vantage point you gaze, the world and your conditions will appear different.  Yet, you are always the same being.  This shows you that only your perception and self-image change, not who or where you are.  Improvement is a state of mind.

Find the bright side

No matter what kind of condition or life circumstances you know and have known, a bright side exists. You can always train or untrain the mind to notice this.  Its a blessing to do so.

For instance, if it is raining outside, and this appears to spoil your plans, you can shift focus to be grateful for the nutrients this brings to the flowers and greenery. You can be grateful for the moisture that renews the Earth, that gives you water to drink, and enables you to do something you would not otherwise have done. You can see rain as opening the way to see the sun. Even an electric storm can be viewed as a form of relief for Nature and much more.

The same can be said for every person you ever know, every job you've ever had, every event that has ever unfolded in front of you. If you feel cheated or betrayed, you can find something positive about the same situation. You can focus what appears to be lacking or what insight, opportunity or wisdom you are gaining. What did you learn about yourself that you wouldn't have seen otherwise? It is valuable to step outside the judging mind.

If you feel you have reason to resign from your job, then you can choose to see that as the best possible thing that could happen, and feel excited about what is coming next. After all, to be your own boss or to find a different job more suitable to your skills would be marvelous!

Consider how an unforeseen injury that laid you up a few weeks enabled you to read the books you hadn't made time to read before. Perhaps you benefit from a reminder to relax and be kinder to yourself. Every event invites you to be more compassionate with yourself and others.  To recognize you have ability to see your life situation from another perspective is something that helps you, come what may.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, you can re-program your mind.  What will it take to convince yourself that you have blessings in your life? Start believing your relationships will be restored, that opportunities already exist for you and you choose to see them or not. As you start expecting good things to happen, then you reach a stage where this is all you see.  Know you pass your tests with flying colors. Recognize everything is preparing you for something else. You are being readied for conditions which are better for you than before. Sensing the bright side strengthens more than eyesight. It moves you from hope to trust.

"Always look on the bright side of life." - Monty Python