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Excerpts from The 7 Mindsets for Success, Happiness and Fulfillment by Swami Mukundananda:
The biggest key to accomplishment, happiness and fulfilment is mastery over our emotions.
The attitudes we harbour habitually within ourselves become our mindsets.
If we can train our mind and intellect, their immense potential will get unlocked.
The principle is simple – we learn to become better persons by learning to harbour better thoughts.
All the Vedic scriptures teach us that spirituality is a journey within ourselves. It entails unfoldment of the inherent divinity within us, which requires purification of the mind. External rituals are useful only as far as they help us make our thoughts sublime.
Both bondage and liberation depend upon the state of our mind.
Let us not allow our thoughts to rob us of peace and joy, which are ours to claim through mastery of our mindsets.
The fact is that if you are not content when you possess a little, you will not be content even when you possess a lot. And if you do not share when you have a little, you will also not share when you have plenty.
The elusive key to happiness lies not on the outside but within us. It can be accessed by developing a proper attitude.
No matter how terrible anybody’s behaviour towards us, there is no justification for harbouring odious thoughts. Our feelings are a choice we make. The responsibility to control our mind is our own.
No matter what the external situation, we are free to choose our emotional response. Understanding this gap between circumstances and feelings provides us with a lever to control our sentiments. It frees the mind from the shackles of the environment. Only when this happens can we begin our journey towards purification of the mind and spiritual elevation.
Those who do not realise this gap between stimulus (the circumstances) and response (our emotions) falsely believe that the steering wheel of their feelings lies in the hands of others.
The sign of emotional immaturity is abdicating accountability for our thoughts.
Taking responsibility for our situation in life is the second mindset for success, happiness, and fulfilment.
Inspiration connects us with an inexhaustible resource of energy within ourselves. It is the fuel that powers our efforts and lifts us up the mountain of material and spiritual success. It adds intensity to our thoughts and quality to our efforts.
Internal motivation is more reliable than external motivation. It is independent of the environment and always at our beck and call.
We become motivated to strive for our goals when we have compelling reasons.
The way then to get internally motivated is to have a strong ‘why’ for doing something.
The conclusion is that to become inspired, we must do two things: 1) convince our intellect about the importance of something, and 2) keep the knowledge active by revising and revisiting it repeatedly (Chintan).
We must use our intellect to eliminate the lethargy of the mind, and this is not a long process. We can shift out mind from being insipid to fervent in just a moment. All we need to do is bring proper knowledge to the intellect, and then push the mind to create matching sentiments.
Success in life should be measured against these three criteria: 1) to become the best we can be, 2) to do the best we can in the works we undertake, 3) to experience happiness and satisfaction in life.
The happiness we are searching for is not on the outside; rather, it is within us and is accessed through purity.
The satisfaction that our soul is seeking comes from purity of intention, purity of effort and purity of feelings. If there is impurity, our inner sense of dissatisfaction conveys to us that there is yet much to be desired.
Psychologists have concluded that when we perceive that the situation at hand requires more financial, spiritual, physical or intellectual resources than we possess, we feel stressed.
Stress develops when we are attached to a particular outcome and are worried that things may not turn out to be as we desire.
What stresses us is not hard work but attachment to the results.
Once we understand the cause of stress, the remedy is simple – give up attachment to the outcome. Simply focus on your efforts, not on the results.
The union of the individual consciousness with the Supreme consciousness is Yog.
There are two branches of knowledge – material science and spiritual science. Both are valid and bona fide. In fact, the synthesis of both is necessary for making our life a success.
Our body is a medium for practising spirituality. Thus, even to go towards God, we need the body, and that requires material science. If spiritualists marginalise it, they are mistaken.
At the same time, spiritual knowledge is indispensable too, and if materialists claim it is a waste of time, they are also mistaken. Without spiritual science, we cannot figure out the technology for the purification of the mind.
It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls, even though they make no public show of their religious feelings.
On issues of morality and ethics, the wisdom to deal with them comes from spirituality.
If there is one magic word that stands out above all the rest in enriching the quality of our lives, it is discipline.
Discipline is the bridge between intention and accomplishment, between inspiration and achievement, between knowledge and practice.
While the intellect considers the value of an action, the mind and senses look for immediate pleasure. There is a constant tussle between them within us.
Practice is the key that opens the door to excellence.
Willingness to tolerate discomfort is thus the universal prerequisite for success.
Willpower gets fatigued when exercised, much like the physical muscles of the body.
Meditation is not merely a technique for spiritual attainment; it also has very practical and tangible benefits for our everyday life.
It is often not the problem that disturbs us as much as our naïve expectations.
Inner strength is the biggest asset we have in the face of challenges, and a proper mindset wins half the battle.
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