Lately I’ve been thinking about the subconscious mind.

Like a monkey that never stops swinging from one tree of thought to another, the subconscious never stops thinking! For example, it goes something like this: “I want to eat this, yummm…ohh, this tastes like the time I shared food with so and so, that day it was nice and warm! I wanna live somewhere closer to the tropics coz I like it hot!! Hm, must visit the travel agent to enquire about ticket prices, oh also to the post office to buy that stamp. Damn economy! Aussie dollar so low, can’t go anywhere....” It’s like a meat market full of noisy people, random and it goes on all day long…amazing when you actually pay attention to your own self talk!

I’ve decided this year that I want to practice meditation. Imagine the possibilities if I can truly master my mind, quiet it, and change the way I react to the same situation in a more constructive way.

In some ways, we’re not too different to the chimpanzees. In more ways than we’d like to admit, our primitive brains respond directly to the outside stimulus: eat, drink, sleep, sex. The conscious mind may exert some degree of control through logical reasoning that stops us from acting out certain desires. We pride in being humans, we pride in the ability to think before we react, but to what degree is that control? Unresolved past experiences are like painful mouth ulcer that get continuously licked by the tongue of our subconscious. We brood over the same thoughts, the same obstacles over and over. Until a breakthrough happens, can you truly break out of that pattern of thought?

A good friend lent me a book I’ve enjoyed reading immensely. It has become my nightly ritual to read a few chapters of a woman’s self discovery journey, and learn from the wisdom she teaches me everyday. The strength of one’s character can truly be tested during one’s darkest hours. Mind mastery equals life mastery. If you can control and dictate the way you view and react to the world, every dream and desire are within your reach. A philosopher once said that everything you are looking for already exists in this world, sometimes we don’t see them materialize in their complete form because they are in their fragmented versions for a reason. It is funny how only when we recognize and appreciate its existence, that it materializes in the real world.