Inner Peace through the Art of Mindfulness

        

Peace itself is soothing to the senses as if they have a craving for it. In our life this craving for peace is sustaining us from destruction and facilitating growth and development. Human beings are animated through the sense organs. The sense organs have certain reservations or limitations and above or below its limitations they become strained and functions are being trampled. In the modern civilized societies we can see restrictions are imposed by Law for freedom from civil disturbances. Interference, in thought, deed or speech or in any way, is hampering the tranquillity of persons. It is only through a state of harmony or concord of the sense organs with the environment people can thrive or else will perish. So the state of tranquillity or quiet by which mankind can live in harmony is termed as peace. Peace is the basement for hope and confidence. Love, good-will, openness, compassion and tolerance are the personal traits of humankind that are ingrained with the inner peace.

Everyone in the Universe needs peace. All wish to live in peace. We wish to have peace at home, at office, at travel, at party, at community and at sleep. We all expect a peaceful journey in our life. Peace is mostly related and concerned when we are able to stand on our own feet. Peace cannot be bought, peace cannot be provided, peace cannot be taken from outside or cannot be gifted. Peace is to be experienced from within. To enjoy peace, we need to sow the seeds of peace within and harvest the fruit of inner peace. Peace is the journey and way of life that ultimately the self is responsible.

I would like to share the experience in my life which motivated me to search for peace of mind. My daughter at the age of four lost one of her ear rings while enjoying weekend with the neighbourhood kids playing ‘hide and seek’ in the back yard. The backyard was full of dry leaves from the trees and plants, besides the untrimmed weeds. I noticed the missing while bathing her in the evening. She was not aware of the loss. I searched for it and didn’t get. It was a traditional art piece of gold earrings gifted by my mother. Immediately my grief turned into anger. I scolded and punished her forgetting that, it was my fault, not to wear the little one with the expensive and precious ornament. She cried a lot and was sad. I left her in her room not to move anywhere without my permission. After half an hour, I thought of solacing her since I was too rude to her. But to my surprise, I found her playing with her puzzles and games in her room. It was a revealing moment for me. Tears filled in my eyes with joy. I was so glad to find that she came up from the down moments instead of staying in the dark of sadness for long. She regained her composure by finishing the feeling and got engaged herself in the happy world. Something triggered in me about mindfulness and I felt ashamed about the mindlessness. I knew mindlessness is a pitiful situation making one live in the past and ruminating on the loss. This incident evinced in me that it is high time to find some measures for mind training. I and my husband joined the Simplified Kundalini Yoga Centre (SKY) of Vedathiri Maharishi. We learned the full course of yoga and meditation and mastered in the course. For the last three decades I am enjoying the art of mindfulness through meditations and also spreading the message through teachings helping others around us to live in peace.

Mindfulness is a simple method of mental training. It is a meditation focusing on your breath. It is a valuable technique to act on your mind to experience inner peace. Sit comfortably on a mat cross legged or on a chair with feet touching the floor. Place your palms up on your knees in chinmudra. Chinmudra is done by touching the tips of your thumb and index finger and keeping other three fingers straight. Focus on your breath as it flows in and out of your body. While inhaling, observe your thoughts coming in, the way it is struggling with you and let it go out slowly while exhaling. The thoughts come in and go and you can feel and experience that the thoughts are not staying in your mind anymore. This realisation helps you to understand thoughts and emotions both positive and negative are all temporary and it can’t make any strong relations with you unless you allow the emotions to live with you. Mindfulness helps to prevent stress, anxiety, doubts, selfishness and even to get rid of these more easily from your mind than before. This mindful awareness helps to increase memory and leads you to be optimistic, creative and innovative. It helps to see the world in a wider frame with more clarity and with a mindset to change the unwanted things in your mind to become wiser. Mindfulness helps to love you and love others. Helps to demoralise our desires, live in the present, balance our life physically, mentally and spiritually and to be the change we wish to see in the world. Mindfulness teaches us to forget and forgive and live in peace.

Mindful meditation is a clear path to realise your inner self and experience inner peace. Once you realise your inner peace keep working on it. Systematic and regular practices are needed to sustain inner peace. Set apart 15 to 20 minutes for inward journey through meditation to apply “oil and massage” in your mind with mindfulness. Early morning is the best time to practice mindfulness. During the day, if you feel disturbed or discomfort, a five minute mind conscious meditation will quickly bring you back in the present moment with positive thoughts and the ability to get in tune with others and the environment. This allows one to experience and enjoy inner peace. Once we find inner peace and sustain it then we can stay  in any adverse situations with peace of mind and radiate peace outward.