Plaything of One's Own Mind

                          All people are the playthings of their thoughts

                For this reason they are weary-hearted and sorrowful

                                                                                (Rumi)

"One who does not know self-knowledge easily becomes the plaything of one's own mind."

One of our greatest problems is a phenomenon we call intrusive thoughts or negative thoughts. We drown in bitter past events and become afflicted with grief, regret, and sorrow. Or we think about what has not yet happened and fall prey to anxiety and worry. Many of us have even realized the futility of past sorrow and future worry. That is, we know rationally and logically that grieving over the past will change nothing. Today's anxiety will not help improve our tomorrow either. On the contrary, the psychological pressures arising from sorrow and anxiety will erode our strength and energy and diminish our power to solve problems. It is clear that all these distressing states originate from our thoughts. We all know that if we escape the whirlpool of futile thoughts, undesirable feelings will also release their grip on us, but the problem is that we often lack sufficient mastery over our thoughts. We are unable to rid ourselves of the stubborn thoughts that bring these agonizing feelings in their wake. It is as if our mind and thoughts are not under our own control. Many of us surrender to the waves of these paralyzing thoughts to such an extent that we advance to the brink of nervous disorders, heart failure, and even stroke and death. And all of this stems from surrendering to the relentless flood of thought. Tormenting thoughts, like a monster, swallow our existence and dash the boat of our life like a splintered plank upon the rocks of pain, suffering, and erosion...

But the question is, if this thought and this mind belong to us, why should its behavior be beyond our control? Why should things happen inside our own skulls that we ourselves do not want? Do thought and reflection have any duty other than serving us in building a better life? Is the mind's job to plan for our comfort and flourishing, or to drag our existence to the precipice of sorrow and anxiety? Should we be riding the steed of the mind, or should the mind be riding us? Let us speak a little about this.

It is better to know that the mind is a programmable machine that can be trained both to our benefit and to our detriment, just like a computer or even a domesticated animal! If the mind is not trained and is left to its own devices, it falls prey to all kinds of daydreaming, confusion, and delusion. If we do not give direction to our thoughts, our mind becomes accustomed to vagrancy and dissipation, and like a runaway horse, it carries us terrified on its back, pulling us one way one moment and crashing us another way the next. Some imagine that study and the so-called acquisition of knowledge, in and of itself, brings clarity to the human mind and thought. But it must be known that the mere entry of more information into the mind, even if it does not worsen the situation, will not help increase human awareness. The mind must be acquainted with critical thinking. The mind must be known, and one must become aware of its deceptions and errors. The mind must be trained and kept sharp and agile; otherwise, we will become captive to delusion and suffering. Gradually, as we become familiar with the errors and trickeries of the mind, we will discover that a large part of our problems are not actually problems, but the vagrancy of our own mind. I think Rumi points to the necessity of human mastery over the vagrant mind when he says:

Deliberately I give myself over to thought,       so that when I wish, I may leap out from among them.

I am the bird of the zenith, thought is a fly,     how could a fly ever have access to me?

I am the ruler of thought, not the ruled,     for the builder is the ruler over the building.

 

Rumi says: a human being should not be a passive and helpless captive in the hands of their own thoughts, but should actively ride the current of their thought and harness it for their own benefit. "Bony" means structure or edifice. He says the intelligent person should, like an architect, govern the edifice of their thought and manage it. Otherwise, superfluous thoughts will torment their being like bothersome flies. Rumi himself considers the secret of his tranquility and self-confidence to lie in the mastery and control of his own thought and reflection.

But the question most friends ask is: what should be done? How can one be freed from the suffering of the mind's illusions? How can one have a vigilant, aware, and calm mind? In my opinion, it can be said in brief that our mind has suffered from a weakness of cognition in two aspects: the quantitative and the qualitative. And to reach a state of a calm and wise mind, the mind must be exercised and cultivated in both dimensions.

What is meant by the quantitative problem is that from early childhood, due to the bombardment of slogans, teachings, and environmental indoctrinations, a storehouse of vague and contradictory knowledge has accumulated in our memory, which is the source of our mental obscurity and confusion. Today, we see the world through the lens of a mass of uncriticized information and undigested knowledge, not in a clear form based on lucid logic. For example, everyone speaks of kindness and love or patriotism, but there is little agreement on the real meaning of these values; otherwise, so much war, hatred, and misunderstanding would not arise among people. Rumi says:

The discord of people arises from names; when it goes to meaning, tranquility descends. (Rumi)

Furthermore, if the concept of such words were clear to us, we would not have flocked after Hitlers and Saddams and slaughtered one another. Many of society's directives suffer from ambiguity, contradiction, and gross errors, yet these very contradictory expectations have taken up residence in the hidden chamber of our mind and psyche and have imposed a set of "vague and conflicting moralities" upon our thought, each corner of which is in contradiction and incompatibility with another, and acting upon its instructions is fundamentally impossible. We lack a clear definition of the most sensitive values that steer our lives and determine our sorrow and anxiety, friendship and enmity, or our minor and major decisions. Concepts such as respect, honesty, right, duty, value, and worthlessness, despite all their intellectual, behavioral, and emotional sensitivity, have no clear and precise meaning in our minds. Today, we have abandoned our mind and life like a helpless skiff in the hands of society's vague definitions. And it is for this reason that we have fallen into dizziness and anxiety. The bubbling up of intrusive thoughts in our head indicates the restlessness and anxiety of the mind. It is natural that a person compelled to obey unexamined and imposed instructions will be hesitant and anxious in every action they take. Moreover, since the correctness of a person's deeds and behavior, and even the goodness and worth of their character, depends not on their own reason and logic but is conditional upon the approval of this or that person, it is natural that the human mind constantly flounders in worry and a crisis of conscience, and tranquility and assurance are stolen from them.

What we have said pertains mostly to the quantitative aspect of the mind's condition, that is, the problem of alien and uncertain beliefs and knowledge. But from a qualitative standpoint, our mind suffers from weakness of discernment, prejudice, and an inability in critique and judgment. We are incapable of seeing phenomena as they are and of impartially critiquing ideas, claims, and behaviors. Our desires, fears, greeds, and prior experiences obstruct our clear-sighted vision and interfere in our discernment, and this has afflicted us with compounded ignorance and illusion.

 Of course, these too are the result of the intellectual and cultural bombardment of society upon our minds. Slogans and environmental indoctrinations have robbed us of the opportunity for free thought. Essentially, the environment wants conformist and like-minded people, not critical individuals. Society is an organism that expects obedience and conformity from its parts, not insight and questioning, for otherwise there is the fear that the order governing this organism will be disrupted, even if this order is a set of pathological and pathogenic relations. Naturally, the more "traditional" and "collectivist" a culture is, the greater its pressure on individuals for conformity and obedience. Never mind that such a process is ultimately detrimental to society itself, but well, this is the very definition of ignorance and folly: not recognizing one's own true interests, insisting on something that is to one's own detriment! (Of course, the education system and its teachings, especially in third-world countries, if not harmful to mental alertness and questioning, are by no means sufficient). Considering what has been said, it can be said that the quantitative aspect of our problem relates more to memory and mental reserves, while the qualitative dimension pertains to the process of thinking and information processing. All of this has made our minds dizzy, anxious, and restless, and the result of such a process is the frantic spinning of negative and disturbing thoughts in our minds. Of course, many of us do not seriously seek a solution and traverse the days of life with this "bone in the wound." Many others resort to self-deception and numbing the mind, and as Rumi says, soothe ourselves with "bhang and wine" or numb our pains in worthless relationships and activities that are no less than bhang and wine:

So that for a moment they escape the suffering of existence, they bring upon themselves the disgrace of wine and bhang

 

(I have addressed these topics in my two recent books, "The Tightrope Walker" and "From Suffering to Liberation"). But before we propose strategies and solutions, we must remember an important point, which is that, as we said, contrary to what many imagine, the problem of intrusive thoughts is not merely a purely intellectual or sensory problem that can be suppressed or controlled with methods like suggestion and concentration (suggestion and concentration are useful and applicable in their proper place, but not everywhere). Such methods, although they may seem attractive and deceptive, will never be able to eliminate a problem that arises from dependent thinking and an injected, blind worldview. True peace cannot be obtained from any source other than the fountain of insight and awareness. And those who try to resolve a problem rooted in a person's wrong way of thinking and worldview with superficial and comforting methods either intend to deceive and numb people or are unaware of the nature of the problem they are trying to solve; in either case, if they have not deceived the person, they have not helped resolve their problem. Here too, Rumi, with his astonishing insight and profundity, has depicted our problem and its solution:

When you make a yellow glass a veil, you will see all the light of the sun as yellow

Break the blue and yellow glass, so that you may recognize the dust and the man

But as for what the solution is, it must be said that, in my opinion, what we generally need, apart from good and useful knowledge, is a skill called "critical thinking" or "critical thought." Critical thinking is a method in which we analyze and scrutinize a claim or statement and identify its components. Then we make a judgment about its precise meaning, its truth or falsehood, and its possible errors and flaws. Learning "critical thinking" increases our power of critique and questioning and prevents our minds from falling into the whirlpool of imitation, deception, numbing, and the sufferings arising from it. Regarding the skill of critical thinking, there are good books and resources available that must be obtained and studied, and this skill must be practiced and honed. In psychology, they say that thinking critically and impartially is a skill that humans are born with its opposite! That is, people, by instinct, tend to judge phenomena from the angle of their own benefit and interests. Therefore, critique and fairness in judgment is a skill that must be learned, worked on, and internalized in one's thought until it becomes part of the person's outlook.

Moreover, there are several scientific-intellectual fields that particularly help clarify our thought and mind, and which we must learn in order to refine our thinking and psyche. One of these fields is philosophy. The study of philosophy instills a positive and constructive doubt in the mind regarding concepts we have accumulated in our memory over a lifetime. Philosophy challenges our thinking so that we define the important words of life clearly for ourselves and do not fall into the trap of propaganda and vague thinking. Philosophy means knowing the nature of phenomena. That is, as Rumi says, “passing beyond the name and moving to the attributes”:

Pass beyond the name and look upon the attributes, so that the attributes may guide you to the essence.

If you remain in forms, you are an idolater; leave the form and look upon the meaning.

Likewise, familiarity with “epistemology” or the “theory of knowledge,” which is one of the three main branches of philosophy, acquaints our thought with its own limitations, shows us the errors of our mind, and saves us from dogmatism and absolutism. Another useful science is psychology. In psychology, too, the discussion of cognitive biases, the interference of emotions in cognition, and the forms of self-deception is a very fascinating and useful topic. Studying these subjects and understanding the quantitative and qualitative aspects of thinking can greatly help clarify our mind and free it from dependency and the crisis that results in tension, anxiety, and distressing thoughts. Of course, and most certainly, having a strong desire for awareness and attaining pure wisdom is a crucial principle without which even entering such fields will not do much to clarify our mind.

Thank you for reading.

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Plaything of One's Own Mind

Author: Sasan Habibvand

telegram.me/sasanhabibvand

[email protected]

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