Conquering countries.
Conquering countries is easy, compared to conquering yourself. That is why it has happened over many times in our human history. It was just yesterday I watched a documentary on how Saddam Houssain, conquered Kuwait, for a brief period of time. You just need to be having a big army and a corrupted regimen; a cruel dictator can easily conquer a country. Compared to this conquering yourself is difficult. Even for the dictator himself. This is the exact message I have illustrated in the previous article, weak dictators of our history.
Conquering yourself - Rene Descartes
Can anyone conquer your body? Have you seen Bruce Lee, playing table tennis with two players with his Nun chuck? I read that he was short in one leg, however he could throw a punch to bring down a six-foot fighter. He had mastered conquering of the body and mind. If we try to wiggle the Nun chuck, the way he did it, we will injure ourselves.
So, when Rene Descartes said, "Conquer yourself rather than the world" I could not agree more. Because I believe that this is the only thing a rational person could try to do in this chaotic world.
It is not an easy task to conquer yourself. At least for me. And I believe it is harder than conquering anything. How can we do this, and why it is difficult?
The problem is our monkey mind. Although we believe that we have full control of our thoughts and actions only when you start trying to conquer yourself that you would notice it is not so. During day-to-day activities we are so much distracted to see this process, but when you sit down to relax you would see.
In meditation and mindfulness
Imagine you try to meditate. Sit on a one place, close your eyes and start your attention on your breath. After a while the attention starts to drift. On sounds, on little discomforts in the body or on past experiences and images. It seems keeping attention on breath is the hardest thing to do. So, who controls your mind? if you are not doing it. If your own thoughts are uncontrollable, why do we think we have a free will.
I can see it makes me uneasy. The monkey mind does not allow me to rest even when that is my intention of meditation. And if I started to fight against this nature, it gets worse, and I will have to do what the monkey says. I have seen great masters of mindfulness have given us the wisdom to overcome this situation. We have to acknowledge those sensations and 'Let it go'. The acknowledging and not fighting is the key to calming down the monkey.
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