Free the Mind

Namaskaram

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We all had our hard times throughout our lives. Life is never meant to be easy, hence all of us have our share of bad times to go through. It is part of learning to improve and moving on. Some of our experiences, let it be from during our childhood days or some traumatic event such as accidents, can affect our mind deeply. These events are stored in your subconscious that acts like a repository.

 In Freud's opinion the unconscious mind has a will and purpose of its own that cannot be known to the conscious mind (hence the reason why it is called the "unconscious") and is a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression. Excerpt from Wikipedia on Subconscious.

These events can create many psychological issues that affect us. It is responsible for all your phobias, unexplainable anger, judgmental character, and the times where we just hate something and we do not know why. This is where it all comes from. Therefore, we need a way to clear it, throw those rubbish away from our mind, so we can have a more focused thinking that is not affected by all this experience.

My suffering

I, for an instance, have suffered from some traumatic experience in life, be it family, friends, losing a loved one (this has been repetitive throughout my life), guilt in depth sadness and many more. One point of time, I was under psychotherapeutic tablets to keep my calm and stop me from thinking too much. There was a lot of fear inside of me. Some things I knew I could do, but I just did not want to, because of the fear and sadness I have inside of me. These unwanted emotions, anchored me down and kept me in the dark for such a long time. It was like i was being hindrance for myself from moving forward. I was circling in this dark time for a very long time, for years name it. I dream every night and 80% of it are related to my traumatic experience.

The Saviour

Trataka have been my savior in helping me get out of my own way.

I practice trataka at night because it was the most convenient time for me. In my initial days of my practice, when I go to bed, I get dreams related to my past and some smaller events that have created certain kinds of phobia in me such as height. They were a different kind of dreams, some are repetitive, probably because they impacted me more than the rest.

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Over the time, maybe about 3 to 4 months down the road, I noticed that I was beginning to lose my phobias and I was able to let go of some past that i was subconsciously holding on it all this while. When I am happy, I was happy from the inside out. I used to hold grudges and take some things straight to the heart and it would hurt, i noticed that i do not do that anymore. I do get mad and angry at times, but after I leave that place or conversation, the feeling goes away. It is like nothing was being taken inside to my subconscious.

Slowly, as time passed by, I developed this interest in gazing longer at the flame, I feel the light effect inside of me, sort of a glow that makes me shine inside out. Even though small, I was able to feel the heat of the flame, it was soothing and it felt as if it was healing me. It improved my concentration and i developed the skill to remember things that I focus on very clearly, I do not even have to write them down.

Forgiving Nature

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The best gift trataka have given me, is a forgiving nature. I was a person that could not look eye to eye with someone that have burned the bridge with me. I never wanted to see them, talk to them or have anything to do with them ever again. But the bitter fact is, we all live in a very small earth. Some day or other, the paths will cross and we will have to see them again. Sometimes, we think forgiving is something we are doing for another person, but it is something we do for ourselves. By forgiving, we are letting go of all the bad energy inside me, and keep the remaining bond happy and simple. One day when we depart from this world to another journey with just the soul, we do not want the soul to carry the burden of anger, sadness and all the negative energy along with it. It must be a free soul with no attachment even in a bad way. Trust me, carrying a grudge, anger and bad past inside of us is really an extra burden, it is very heavy but the weight is not tangible.

Most of us understand these facts, but I can hear you whispering, it is not as easy as said and done. Yes, it is not. I took me almost a year to get where I am today. I am still healing, and I will continue to practice to clear my mind and free my soul from all the unwanted weight. So practice, keep faith and keep practicing. May trataka take you in a wonderful prayaana (Journey) as it is taking me.

Click here to read more about how to do trataka at home.

Peace. Love and Harmony
Om