They say that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail nowhere is this more appropriate than in our own lives. There have been numerous occasions when we open our eyes in the morning with sluggishness, groan at the beginning of yet another painful day and allowed the snooze button to control our lives.
A few simple changes of habits can make all the difference to our lives.
After preferably an early dinner, a 15-minute light walk would be of great help both from health and mental agility point of view .We can then sit down and plan in 2 hourly buckets our vision of spending the coming day. This would require a slight mental strain, which would become a habit within a week.
In case you are under severe mental stress, never tend to drown yourself in sleep immediately and hope to overcome the problem. While lying down in bed always concentrate on each part of your body starting from your toes and imagine, just imagine the nerves out there easing off and leaving your body. Slowly allow your thoughts to glide slowly upwards reaching the knees and finally up to your neck, nerves at each part slowly being evanescent and vaporizing out of your body. Calm, calm, let go, let go ...Finally as you slowly let go, imagine a flame in your heart, that of the Divine Almighty coming out of you and leaving your body .A small, sharp and orangish flame ...slowly moving out...and this slowly brings in the nest form of sleep .The draems in this form of sleep would bring in many pleasant memories.
As you open your eyes in the morning, don't jump off the bed immediately and rush to action. Imagine the flame, which left you coming back to you and proceeding longitudinally into you. Open your eyes slowly and try to recollect the dream. Take in deep breaths with your spinal cord held straight and imagine the breath reaching towards the end of your spinal cord. While exhaling follow the breath through. This act may be repeated for 3 minutes. Chant the name of the Lord as you now go through the normal routine activities for the day.
Believe me Dear friends; if you follow this purposefully, your day will be made. As you practice this, you may initially occasionally come through resistance and lack of concentration. But if you have faith in this methodology it will ultimately seep into you and modify you. Please occasionally drop in with your thoughts at subby_d_g@hotmail.com.
These are some of the ideas taught by the ancient sages of India to whom we ever remain indebted for the Vedantic perspectives to living. I humbly dedicate this small note to them with the hope that many of you might benefit from these practices. This is our own small way of repaying our debts to the sages ( Rishi Rin ) and the sacrifices they made for imparting these learnings .
Bibliography :
Indian Ethos for Modern Management - Swami Jitatmananda
Getting More out of Life - Reader's Digest
Living Within - Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother
S.DasGupta is a practising manager in India . He is a Chemical Engineer MBA by education. Areas of interest include Strategic Management and Thought leadership, Managerial Ethics and Value Systems . He can be reached at subby_d_g@hotmail.com.