A calm, strong mind

Our mind, he says, is like the leaves of a peepal tree, set trembling by the slightest breeze; or like a horse with no reins, running and running. A restless mind leads to wrong decisions, unfinished work and, in time, to illness.

His first remedy is the breath: give ten minutes of the day’s twenty-four hours to slow, attentive breathing. His second is to live in the present. Dwelling on the past makes us sad; dwelling on the future makes us anxious. Mahavira and the Buddha learned calm, and Kautilya, always busy, still kept his mind steady, which is why his decisions were sound. When thoughts come, let them flow past. Don’t chain one thought to the next. And if the mind still will not settle, go and sit near trees, or do some good work.

Some people have everything, he observes, yet their mind is weak: they panic at small things and decide in advance that they cannot do the work. His advice is to start with small tasks. Each small success raises your morale, and the mind grows stronger.

Much of our weakness is the fear of what others will say: a friend, a neighbour, a relative. It is your life, he reminds students. The people who call you weak or foolish today will praise you when you succeed. If you have cleared the Pre, why would you not clear the Mains, and then the interview? Think of Jain monks who walk barefoot in the heat of Jeth over long journeys and still finish them. Vivekananda and Gandhi both taught fearlessness.

We dress well and practise many skills, he says, but we never train the brain. Mental strength matters for personality, for success and for relationships, and it is not something you are born with. It is built, slowly, through practice, discipline and patience; the brain can change, and it can be trained.

Start by noticing negative thoughts (Will I fail? Will I never move ahead?) and putting them out. Then change the way you think about a situation, as psychologists teach. Whenever you feel yourself sliding, stop and ask calmly why you are turning negative. That question alone, he says, begins to build strength.

The mind is not separate from the body, he points out; a sad mind slowly shows up as illness. So look for the cause. As the Buddha said, every event has a cause. Often we have blown a small matter up, or are staring anxiously at the future.

Two practical suggestions follow. Don’t go to sleep with a heavy mind, because it works on you all night and you wake up tired; give yourself a happier thought before sleep. And when sadness is heavy, change your surroundings: dust the room, set the cupboard and the books in order, walk in a garden, or invite a friend for tea, or go to a friend’s house for one.

Over the years, he says, we build a wall in the mind out of old experiences, old pain and old memories. It stops us from changing and pulls us back whenever a new chance appears: what if I fail, what if I lose, what if the new place is hard?

You do not have to become someone new, he says, only transform who you already are. Give it five minutes each morning: take a short walk and ask whether some old hurt is holding you back today. Done daily, the wall comes down brick by brick, and you can take the next opportunity when it comes.

As a historian he has taught the revolutions of France, Russia and America, which changed societies, economies and governments. India, he notes, has been a peace-loving country, and that is a good thing. But he asks for a different revolution: one inside the mind.

Wash the mind the way a machine washes clothes, he says. Take out envy and prejudice and make it clean. The subconscious mind holds a great treasure: what it believes, the conscious mind begins to act on. Tell it you are weak and you become weak. Train it, the way a computer is programmed, and you will find yourself moving forward.

Creativity, for him, starts with asking why. Do you accept ideas only because others do? Look at the kitchen: small changes have produced recipes no one imagined, and children now eat at home what they once bought outside. When you read that carrots are good for the eyes, find out why. When people worship the peepal tree, ask what the custom protects. Aristotle and Plato, and later Francis Bacon, taught the world to look for reasons.

New ideas also need space. If you are on screens, on YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp, from morning till evening, nothing new can come in. Keep part of the mind empty, he says, and do something new with your hands.

One day, he says, he asked himself what the most precious thing in the world is: money, gold, land, a bank balance? People run after these with no time left for home or for themselves. Then he understood: the most precious thing is the person. Without you, all of it is useless.

So give yourself half an hour each morning: ten minutes of light exercise, ten minutes of breathing, and ten minutes of reading. Motivational videos come and go, he says, but discipline stays, and it is discipline that carries you forward. Keep a circle of positive people who give you good knowledge and good energy.