Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Step # 2

The most difficult thing in excercising control is the initial oath. When I read that from Gandhiji's "Experiments with the truth", I started pondering on his observation from his life.

Now, its no more just an academic read. I can now see why he states so. I struggled a lot to take up the vow of turning vegetarian. Myriad of questions thronged my mind. Self doubt about my ability to have my will under my control was the most daunting.

But once the ship started sailing, it was not that rough a ride. Yes, there was some craving for the hyderabadi biryani or the prawns curry for a while in the initial days. Today, I do not even feel the temptation to deviate from my stand. Yes, sometimes the craving kicks in - trust the mind to do it! But that craving just whimpers away as a small rat on the big stage! Its gone even before I notice it!

Encouraged by my own little success, it has given enough confidence to take the step #2. Yesterday I have decided to start version 2 of the changes. Its about killing each of my bad habits - this time its about my thought processes.

I made sure that I have nothing accessible to me which could potentially entice me back to my old style of thinking. I thought that would be the easy part, but believe me it looked like someone was screaming at me not to embark on this new route. There was a huge pull to hold me back! I dont know how I fought that demon called inertia but I decided to set sail on my next interesting voyage.

I have been going through some withdrawal symptoms in trying to adopt this new system in purging all my thoughts. But if I were to go by my experiences of my first set of experiments and their results, I have a belief that sometime sooner or later this will be internalized in me. I do not have to consciously fight it out.

I do not know if I currently have all the wherewithal to reach the destination I have set out for. But I do know that I will find my ways to get there if I work hard enough. I am not under the impression that controlling my thoughts (not just actions) is any easy ask. But theres the target I set for myself and over a few years (or may be a few decades) I hopefully would have weeded out all that symbolizes impurity in me.

And yes! I am enjoying the sailing part as much as the joy of anticipation of reaching my destination! And thats such a big encouragement for me to keep sailing!

2 comments:

Tys on Ice said...

man...thats so cool....may u succeed where others have failed or have not dared to thread...

if in the next 10 years u become swami sri raghu, i wanna be the pr person... :)

Raghu said...

others have succeeded.. just that their numbers are scaringly few :)

most welcome swami tys! :P