#81 Cultivation

Cultivation

Like always, in the morning I went over the terrace to extract the inspiration of the day, observing the surrounding full of life and energy. Really, the view from the terrace has always been so enticing and has provided motivation for this post. I observed something today which is worth mentioning. As I looked down from one side of the terrace, I found that a barren piece of land lying adjacent to the periphery of my hostel’s boundary had got beautifully transformed into a cultivated land producing crops and cereals. The meticulous division of the land for the purpose of growing different crops looked no different from the political maps representing demarcations of different regions in geography books. The putting up of scare crows (artificial human beings) dressed up in today’s fashionable attire (for protection of the crop from birds and animals) added an extra delight to the sight. I recalled those days I visited my village few years back and such scenes were quite less in number , even though the frequency had reduced to a great extent due to the effect of urbanization and modernization. The architects of that field lived happily near it in a temporary settlement reminding me of another one which was once existent in another side of the hostel.

I reflected for a moment that whatever I was witnessing then, was the result of relentless toil of those people. They took every care to convert a barren land into a productive one. I could relate that land to our minds and the crops to the countless thoughts which are required to be cultivated with utmost caution. Our thoughts make us who we are. In fact, we are the portraits of our own thoughts. All our emotions like pain, suffering, joy, sorrow are deeply connected with our thinking process. That’s why someone has very well remarked that “We suffer more in our thoughts than in reality. We become happy or sad because we revise the thoughts of our past. Thoughts keep on creating utopian environments continuously in our mind. They have enormous power to transform us into anything.

“You never can tell what a thought will do

In bringing you hate or love-

For thoughts are things, and their airy wings

Are swifter than carrier doves.

They follow the law of the universe-

Each thing creates its kind,

And they speed O’er the track to bring you back

Whatever went out from your mind.

-Anonymous

Looking at the importance of thoughts, Napolean Hill has advised everyone to devote sometime for analyzing one’s own thought pattern because our mind processes each destructive thought the same way as in case of a constructive one. Both problems and solutions are present in our mind according to a saying there are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge. Quoting the author’s statement from the novel “Think and grow rich”, “We are what we are because of the vibrations of the thought we pick up and register, through the stimuli of our daily environment.

Concluding this post with some of the most powerful lines taken from the bestseller “Think and grow rich” by Napolean Hill,

“If you think you are beaten, you are,

If you think you dare not, you don’t

If you like to win, but you think you can’t

It is almost certain you won’t.

                                        

If you think you’ll lose, you are lost,

For out of the world we find,

Success begins with fellow’s will-

It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclasses, you are,

You’ve got to think high to rise,

You’ve got to be sure of yourself before

You can ever win a prize.

Life’s battle don’t always go

To the stronger or faster man

But soon or later the man who wins

Is the man who thinks he can.”

Taking care of your thoughts is as important as taking care of your body. So, take care of them.

Swati Sarangi

08.11.2014