The Devil is within...

One doesn't need everything in place to do A thing. 

Deep in my heart, i wanted to return to writing, but somehow could not do it. 

Today, i got a text message from one of the readers asking me to continue writing. And boy, that felt good. (You see, recognition matters !!)

And so i decided that irrespective of the schedule, i will start today itself. This post is dedicated to her.

Please find below, a few bullet points and i will leave the 'connecting the dots' part to you.

• The devil is within...The fight is always within ourselves. The Mahabharata battle is symbolic and the esoteric meaning is to fight with our own bad habits. We all have a fair knowledge of what is right or wrong. It is just that we fail to make the right choices. Two reasons - lack of awareness and lack of will power.

• Now, we have heard a lot about the 'free will' stuff. But, to a great extent we are limited in exercising our free will. We make choices based on our habits that have been ingrained in our mind(consciousness) since incarnations. 

• But, if we are aware during the choice making process and use our discrimination while choosing and do a thing not simply because it comes naturally to you but because we know that it is the right thing to do, then and then only the free will is exercised. Rest of the time it is our habits(read mental programs) that make the choices. It is like algorithmic trading in stock market. 

• Doing a right thing whether we "feel like doing it or not" is what i mean to say. And even when we naturally choose the right thing, we should be doing it with full awareness.

• I roughly remember this - "watch your thoughts. It is the quality of your thoughts that determines your success". 

• So what is the way to increase our awareness? My answer is "Practise". Meditation also helps. Hanging around with "more aware" kind of people will help too. 

• Don't we all hang around with people of our kind? This is automatic. It is directed by our likes and dislikes. So we may start by reviewing our likes and dislikes. One definition of maturity (mental and emotional growth) is "to have reduced likes and dislikes". 

• Thought-action-habit work in a closed loop. Action reinforces a good / bad habit and our subsequent choice making (thought) is based on this mental pattern.

• The next thing to improve 'awareness' or do conscious choice making, is to keep reviewing ourselves objectively. I made the following note on my phone last year..."How would you know that you are moving in the wrong direction and that you are making wrong choices? To know this one must be open to others views. If not always, at least once in a while one should snorkel out. One must be ready to question his belief system. We all work from a platform, where we consider our judgement to be not only correct but also the best in class. On one hand this faith in self is good for success, but on the other hand, it may make us head in the wrong direction. A missile with no feedback loop is not going to hit the target".

• Coming back to the first bullet point. Life is a daily battle of activity (and hence the URL of this blog). We all have to constantly fight our inner fears. It is we, who stop ourselves from reaching our full potential. Those past karma's (read habits) are the devils and they sure do not want you to succeed. Fight it to become better.

Can you connect the dots ??