How to develop peace of mind consciously
There are hundreds of things that we can learn from the lives of others, particularly those who are still alive at the age of seventy or eighty.
Talk to them, and you will discover so many common points -- they were far more ethical, they had faced severe times of shortage with low salaries and fairly high cost of living, they lived without electronic gadgets and taught to their children many values that parents of today's children are finding very difficult to impart.
Yes, they all had and still have something that we miss today: peace of mind.
What exactly is this peace of mind? Peace of mind is nothing but the state of mind, where the mind remains very calm, where the mind is not jumping from one extreme to another and when the mind is very calm.
Many of us think that this state of the mind is very difficult to attain. This is wrong. It can be done and there are many ways in which it can be done.
Based on my own experiences, and experiences of several others who are now more than seventy or eighty years old, I have drawn up a list of certain actions, that I shall attempt to explain in some detail.
Have a firm goal in life
What is this goal? This goal may be having many sub-components, but we need to be very clear about what we want, and also be prepared to face any situation or eventuality that such a goal may mean in terms of actual life experiences, including health, relationships with people, including children and so on.
For example, in terms of financial goals, I would be satisfied with something like forty hundred thousand rupees as total, of all my life savings, retirement benefits and so on, ten years from now, when I would no more be active and can't earn any money. My sub financial goal would be to get my daughter married with the fifteen hundred thousand rupees that I now have, and would also have to totally liquidate all my loans, and my housing loan, two years ahead of that magic age of sixty five. My house is no more than one thousand square foot, but that is all I could manage.
I would be happy with the financial goals in terms of what has been specified above. Another goal is to be totally independent of my children, for as long as possible, in my lifetime, irrespective of whether am healthy or not. I would take to Ayurveda or Siddha or any other stream of medicine to prevent many diseases to the maximum extent possible, though the health insurance is always there to take care of any emergency.
You should have such a clear goal. Once the goal is clear, we will at least have so much of clarity as to what we will need to achieve.
Yes, there will be hardships. At around eight per cent interest, I would have just twenty eight thousand rupees in around a decade from now, but I would need to manage, irrespective of the very high cost of living.
In life, it is always a question of a trade off , to maintain peace of mind. For example, if I were to dine in a hotel like Saravana Bhavan, Chennai, with my wife, I would need at least one thousand five hundred rupees for a single dinner, ten years from now.
What do I do? Very simple. Restrict that to just once in six months, to cut down on cost.
As far as emotional equations are concerned, any prodding by my relatives to earn much more, or any chiding for not having earned much, would have no effect on me. I would just turn around and say" this is my life, let me live it the way I think is fine". Only then, I can have peace of mind.
Get rid of all negative emotions and actions
Hatred, jealousy, poking fun at others, taking ill of others, and so on, can ruin one's life beyond control. No peace of mind can ever come to anyone who indulges in these emotions or actions. Be very clear -- these drag down our thoughts, our action plans, our little concern for others and make us more commercial minded.
Peace of mind can never come with money. If this were true, why is that the most rich people, are also very unhappy people? How is that when you sit down to eat in a marriage, you want to eat so much, but within five minutes feel empty and simply arise to wash your hands?
The answer is: money is important, but there are hundreds of things that money can never buy. Most importantly, happiness.
So, happiness that we think is all about eating a variety of dishes turns out to be the exact opposite. We feel very full, somehow, even if we had not eaten so much.
Yes, when we throw away a huge range of negative emotions, our mind becomes calm. We feel jealous of rich people, including our own relatives. We hate people who make fun of us or get us into trouble. Most of these are related to some commercial transaction or the other. The best way is to just keep our mind very calm, and get on with our life. Even if someone had cheated us for some amount, the only way is to keep away and not maintain any friendship with that person or persons --- but not by hating them, or inviting some trouble by getting into any quarrel with them.
Live life as it comes but don't forget the efforts
Many youngsters do not work hard, they keep on chasing some mirage or happily dream of good days. Nothing will ever happen, as there is no free lunch at all.
For even those who are working, based on the fixed goal described above, if one works to a plan, one can have a good corpus to live with. in terms of financial planning. This is what I mean by efforts. But one should not bother too much about what will happen tomorrow.
Tomorrow will come. Yes, it will be very harsh. You can fancy yourself to be very lucky if you do not find petrol selling at around one hundred and ten rupees per litre, in end 2016. Or a good one kilogram of rice, at around ninety rupees.
Such things are bound to happen. Peace of mind is just getting prepared to face such hardships, having any number of trade offs to overcome those hardships, developing alternatives that are somewhat safe and so on.
For example, if one sells his or her flat in a metro and moves on to live in some tier two or three town, the corpus that one would have would be much more, and more in tune with one's goals. Instead of complaining that city life is so costly, choosing a better alternative is the best way to the prepared. All these are efforts, but one should not loose sleep for things like cost of living.
Trade offs are already common. We are doing it everyday, even unconsciously.
Take to meditation and simply let go
One of my maternal uncles recently said that all news about him, is that he is doing nothing. When he has some twenty thousand rupees to play with, in a tier two town, he would just settle down for simple vegetarian food, do a little bit of meditation, and simply relax -- this is exactly what he means by simply let go.
This does not mean, that a man who is over seventy five years in age, is lazy. He is just being what he is, at that age.
Go to very natural places after securing your place
Everywhere, these are days when everyone loses everything when they lock their houses for just one day. There is no difference between a village or a city. The best alternative is to make someone stay at home in our absence, put all valuables in the bank locker, keep all ATM cards away or with ourselves and ensure that our house is safe.
We can take off to some small ashram or a village with the bare minimum of facilities, but with access to the nearest town.
Now what happens? In the midst of nature, in the midst of people who practice organic farming, with great chances of eating fresh fruits and vegetables, we can live a far more healthier life, for say, even four or five months in a year.
It is not that is applicable to those who are very old. For example, even the best of IT professionals, can take off and live in some rented house in one of the superb villages that dot the surroundings of a small town called Tirunelveli, in South Tamil Nadu. One has to see such villages to understand what is true beauty, or what it means to really live in the lap of nature. The Western Ghats near Coimbatore city offers you such places, even today.
So, peace of mind can be developed consciously. It is not a big magic. It can be done, and should be done.
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.