Beware of Your Thoughts: Part-2

Once there lived a youth (a student) as a tenant in the house of one very old lady. The old lady used to lend money to the people against pledge of valuable things, and in return she used to suck very high interest amount from such people. Although the old lady had amassed huge money, was staying alone, and her days were numbered, she would not show any pity to any person, and would extract the money at any cost with all the cruelty.

Every day the student would see from his window that the poor farmers, workers, ill people, widows would come to her begging and crying. They would seek her mercy as they would always fail to pay the huge interest, and in turn would lose their valuables to the lady and would also face the prosecution from the court of law. But the old lady would not show even a slightest of kindness and sympathy, and she would not even hesitate to take off their clothes.

Seeing this everyday commotion and suffering of the people, the student would get enraged and furious and would think “Why someone does not kill this old lady? This lady is just a burden on the earth; If someone kills her that will save hundreds of people from her clutches and from her torture and cruelty; Someone should just go and chock her throat and murder her”. While having these thoughts in his mind, he would fume, his eyes would get red, his heartbeats would increase, he would clench his fist and would raise his hand as if to clasp old lady’s neck to kill her. Then after some time he would think “Why I am concerned about this? Why should I squeeze her neck? She has not done any harm to me”. And then he would forget about it. But this whole scene of old lady’s cruelty and his furious reaction kept on repeating for years.

Then one day, since the student did not receive money from his family to pay fees, having no option, he went to old lady with his watch to borrow some money. The old lady took the watch, but since she was very old and it was evening time, she could not properly see the condition of watch. So, she went to the window to have a good look at the watch in light and to decide how much money she could lend against the watch.

But suddenly what happened didn’t know, the student went ahead furiously and clasped his hand around the neck of the old lady and squeezed her neck with full force. He did not understand what happened and how it happened. But, by the time he could be aware of what had happened, the blood started oozing from the old lady’s mouth and dribbling on his hands. When the old lady fell on the floor, then only he realized he had murdered her, and he got frightened about what he had done.  Then he ran away, and for whole night on his bed he kept on thinking “How could I kill that old lady? Why this happened to me? What would now happen to me? “.

(Story narrated by OSHO by referring to a novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnPGL6QyICI)

They say “everything is created twice – first in our mind and then in reality”. How true it is no? If you want to build a beautiful house or want to do your flat interior, you create and visualize that design/ plan, even the finest details, first in your mind; and then the same thing is produced in actuality. This principle is applicable not only for such things, but is also equally applicable for the daily situations that we encounter in our life – in one or other way we create those situation first in our mind.

Day in and day out, we keep thinking about the things, people and situations. We constantly keep creating scenes in our mind in a very vivid manner – but mostly in negative manner – in our thoughts we keep abusing, hating, hitting, criticizing others; and when we actually commit those things, we wonder “How this happened? Why this happened to me? How could I do this?”. But we conveniently forget that this was not the first time that it happened, we repeated and practiced it enough in our mind before it became reality. 

So, beware of your thought, don’t take them lightly, because at very moment we are creating our future through the thoughts we are churning and repeating in our mind. The more vivid our thoughts and imagination is, and more emotion driven the thoughts are, the chances of those thoughts being reality is greater and nearer. It is just that instead of focusing constant mind chatter on negativity, practice to keep your thoughts around some constructive and positive results that you wish to produce. Always be in company of encouraging and positive people. Listen, read and watch only that which encourages and empowers you to be more wise, peaceful and kind. What we see, hear, read and watch shapes our thoughts, imagination and our actions. I have dealt this in detail in Part-1 of ‘Beware of Your Thoughts’ – you can read it here  https://os.me/short-stories/beware-of-your-thoughts/

Om Shanti!

PS: The above phenomena are very beautifully explained with practical tips on how to use this power for incredible results in our life, by Dr. Joseph Murphy in his international bestseller “The Power of your Subconscious Mind” – a must read. Just don’t read and forget, Think about it!