It feels good to start Chinese New Year with an exploration of the 5 areas of life. If you have not been following my column, I had previously been discussing the 5 Natural Success principles. These principles are tools to help you achieve whatever you want out of life. The areas of life then are the places you apply these tools. The five areas that I have set up are: the Mind, the Body, Love, Sex, and Money. Let’s begin with the Mind.
The Mind is always a great place to start because if our mind were not here, nothing else would be — the old adage, “I think, therefore I am”. What’s curious about the Mind, inquiring minds want to know, is that we all have one, but where is it? You can’t see it. How do we know that what is on my mind corresponds to yours? Is the color green experienced the same by everyone? Somehow we all generally agree on what is green, but is the green in my vision the same as the green in your vision? I don’t think I would know unless I could actually borrow your eyes. Your mind is very important and exemplifies the Natural Success principle, “I Am”.
The Mind is incredibly vast. The Natural Success principle of the Whole reminds you that the invisible is infinite while the visible is finite. This holds true for the Mind because we can’t see it and it goes beyond our wildest imaginations. You may have an idea of what the Mind is, but your mind is still more than that.
A simple division of your mind consists of your thoughts, your emotions, and your physical sensations. The Natural Success principle of Balance suggests the Mind, like anything else, can generally be divided into two major parts. Basically you have a rational side and an irrational side. Your thoughts are what you think about consciously, your attitudes, your beliefs, your ideas, or your values. This conscious part of you is able to discriminate, make judgments, criticize, and make decisions. Your emotions are your feelings of joy, anger, worry, fear, sadness, jealousy, and the like. They tend to be harder to control and are sometimes unpredictable. Your physical sensations are the perceptions of your 5 senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. They are the interface between the mind, the body, and the world. Sensations result from the impact of things in the world onto the body and as experienced in the mind. Behavior is a result of the mind translated into action; action can result from rational, conscious deliberation or from irrational, unconscious impulse.
Beyond these 3 main parts of the Mind are aspects that you are all aware of. They include dreams, intuition, premonitions, images, visions, and a host of states of being. The Mind experiences different states such as love, creativity, peace, self-esteem, happiness, and health. It is hard to talk about this side of you because it is so subjective. Buddhist monks discourse readily about higher states of consciousness and even have them mapped out as if seeking buried treasure.
In spite of this analysis of the Mind, you should never think you have it figured out–principle of the Truth. When you do, you die because you can no longer grow. You will stagnate, you will not change, and you will not be flexible to adapt to changing situations.
The Mind can be so easy to change at times. But as every psychiatrist knows, sometimes changing someone’s mind can be very difficult. Nevertheless, this does not deny the endless potential for the Mind to be developed. The Buddhist monks didn’t spend their entire lifetime just weeding the gardens. Why do we consider, that after 30 years of age, our minds are formed and nothing else is possible?
One thing to look forward to with the Mind is experiencing emotional feelings; let yourself have it and get it over. Some people never think they can handle certain emotional states. Life shows them how. I will be discussing some ways in future articles.
A good memory is also within your reach. People too often settle for the notion that as you grow older, your memory deteriorates. This may be a general pattern, but it is not something that you need to take for granted.
Our intelligence is something we would never consider for improvement. It is probably accurate that we are born with a certain level of intelligence, but what does that mean? If you work hard enough to understand something, won’t you eventually understand it? I will explore with you the boundaries of your intelligence.
What you can experience with your mind has no boundaries. What degrees of wisdom or intuition are available for your use? I submit that, applying the Natural Success principle of Creation, you can develop your mind in incredible ways — if you just put your Mind to it!