The Power of thought

Many a times, in different phases of our lives when anything significant happens, the question that is uppermost in our minds is, "why me?" Why is it that I am faced with a particular set of situations in life? In particular when the situation is of negative nature the tendency of man is either to blame others or to blame God for whatever is happening. But in actuality who is responsible for what is happening to us? Are the external factors in control or are we responsible for it ourselves?
Sri Bhagavan says, "We are the architects of our life". We are completely and totally responsible for whatever is happening in our lives. Mind and matter are connected. Mind influences matter and matter influences mind. The power of mind over matter is the power of creative thought. This universe runs on certain laws and principles, which are the basis of human existence. For the external universe it is the laws of science and for life it is the laws of karma that are operational.
One of the principles of Karma says, "Yad bhavam Tad bhavathi" - (you become what you think). The world is a manifestation of our inner state. The situations we come across, the people we meet, the problems we confront, and the varieties of life experiences we have a projection of what lies with in. In other words we create our Reality. We are the architects of our Destiny. Perceptions are filters, filtering the experiences we have reality. And the perceived Reality eventually becomes a manifested Reality. You become what you think. We find what we perceived. Thought is immensely powerful. It has the power to create. Every time we perceive; harbour a thought containing a charge or emotion, the process of creation has been set into motion. An arrow has been released into the ethereal planes, the thought sphere. Once released the "law of attraction of homogeneous species" takes over. This thought attracts all similar thoughts. All the similar arrows bundle up and when the threshold is reached, the "law of Reciprocal action" is in motion. The thought you unleashed has now materialized into deed. You reap what you sow many times over. If the arrow you released was judgment, you will come across judgmental people. If it was betrayal you shall be betrayed, if it was hatred, you will be hated, if you have feared that situation will manifest and so on.
"Why did this happen to me?" is no more a paradox. You created it for yourself. We are not perceptive enough to see the relationship between the thought and deed. Perhaps the time lapse between the two is too much for us to keep a track. From thought to deed, it may take a week, a month, a year, a decade or more. As a young girl Seema always used to think that people don't realize her worth only if she falls sick or she is not around anymore. With the passage of time, as she got married those thoughts left her. But then just as the time came when she had a good life with her husband and children, she was struck down with cancer and no amount of treatment could cure her.
Constant review of our lives will help us see the connection. The speed of reciprocation depends upon the evolution of the individual. Sometimes reaching the threshold point could mean a lifetime or more. If we do not find answers to our questions even after examining our lives in the light of these cosmic principles, only the "theory of reincarnation" can explain the rest.
The whole process of the thought materializing into deed is a karmic cycle. Our life is a series of karmic cycles. An awareness of these eternal laws gives us the power to alter the course of karma but not while in the midst of a karmic cycle. We have the power of wisdom and choice of freewill to review and make changes to our life but not before the cycle comes to an end. A frog in mid air cannot alter the course of its flight. However, on landing it can choose the direction of its next leap.
When we ask the question "why is the world so bad?" the world we see is a manifestation of our negative thoughts and emotions. But then many a times we find that in spite of our best efforts to think positively, the mind tends to move towards the negative. What does one do then?
Ultimately as wise doctors always say, "Prevention is better than cure" - real prevention is possible only through true transformation or flowering of the heart. Sri Bhagavan says, "If you discover love you shall know exactly how to live". But this love is not a matter of cultivation but a happening that occurs only through the intervention of the Divine Grace. To discover love is to be enlightened.

- excerpted from talks of Anandagiri, Oneness univercity