Power of Mind Engineering | Read Chapter 1 for free

Read Chapter 1- RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Medical science tells us that most illnesses result from stress, negative thoughts, emotions and poor lifestyle. We do daily exercises, yoga, meditation, take part in training programmes and read spiritual books to stay away from ill health. But in most cases, we are not able to indulge in such activities regularly and make meaningful changes in life. We are not aware of the strong force, the ego-mind that is driving us, which resists any change or improvement.
It is said that we have about 60,000 thoughts every day, out of which 70–80 per cent are negative, and more than 90 per cent are similar to those we have had in the past.1 The subconscious mind is a default programme developed by the age of seven based on experiences and conclusions. Later in life, this ego-mind is the real driving force controlling about 95 per cent of our lives, which we are not aware of. The subconscious mind also develops a belief system, a pattern of perception and a negative emotional reaction pattern in the later part of our life. This pattern of life results in a lot of conflicts, pain and stress. This aspect of unconsciousness or darkness within us needs to be lightened up with new awareness and wisdom. As per the Upanishads, Jnana Yoga (the path of wisdom) is one of the methods for self-realization. This approach is also followed in the mind engineering process.

All spiritual and scientific wisdom tells us that there are different parts of the mind. Most accepted descriptions about the mind teach us about its two broad parts, usually referred
to as the ego-mind and the true self.
The ego-mind or the emotional mind is the sum total of the self-images, roles, learnt perceptions and beliefs. The brain’s left hemisphere is its main processing area and is physically much stronger than the true self. This is the dominant driving force that controls most parts of our lives. Its basic nature is pain, a sense of lack and a sense of separateness. The approach of the ego-mind is based on emotional reactions referring to either the past or the future, resulting in constant conflict and pain. The true self or consciousness is processed mainly in the
right hemisphere and the neocortex of the brain. Its approach is rational, experiential and rooted in the present. It looks at everything and everyone as interconnected and a part of one larger consciousness; its basic nature is love, peace and joy.
We are what we think. Our body and life are the manifestations of our minds. Why can’t we control and manage our minds, thoughts, emotions and behaviour? We are not aware of the fact that our life is driven by our subconscious mind, which includes our beliefs and perceptions. Without us being aware, our ego-mind drives us; we are identifying with the images and roles in the ego-mind. The solution lies in bringing in more awareness, which can reprogramme our subconscious mind, and follow a lifestyle driven by this new awareness. Mind engineering is an approach aimed at achieving the goal to be free from stress, problems, mental pain and ill health, and to have a life filled with love, peace, joy, good
health and wellness.

Caution! There Is Stiff Resistance to Transform
Due to suffering in life, some people feel a deep urge and the need to transform and make committed efforts to achieve the goal of leading a stress-free life, but some may be sceptical or judgemental. Many fall prey to the strategies of the ego-mind and resist change. Some readers have an attitude of ‘let me see how the book is’; such people will obtain a lot of information, but will not be able to undergo the process of transformation. Those who read the book with an open mind, full commitment, practise the suggested methods and continue them until the end will benefit the most. The process of an internal journey is one that needs the help of a guide. To put it in an example, suppose the goal of a blind person (unconscious) is to reach a temple (goal) on the hilltop, for which he needs the help of somebody to move ahead step by step and reach the goal (awakening). If he is open-minded, committed and listens to the guide, he will move ahead step by step with full awareness and reach the goal. Another person, even if partially sighted, may not reach the goal if he is not willing and listening to the guide. Likewise, a fully sighted person will not reach the goal if he is sceptical and refuses to undertake the journey with an open mind.
Let us start the mind engineering process or journey towards awakening. When we undertake this journey with commitment, step by step, we automatically reach higher levels of awareness. It is like lighting small candles on every step of the path towards the destination. We need not make efforts to shed light; when the candle is lit, the shedding of light and dispelling of darkness is automatic. Likewise, we will start manifesting the changes or benefits of higher awareness at each step of awareness in our life. We will start having new, positive and healthy experiences.

When we start living a life without identifying with the ego-mind and follow a rational approach with higher mind engineering wisdom, we will experience and manifest joy, health and wellness.
The mind engineering process basically involves three aspects: higher awareness, full attention with higher awareness and 100 per cent experience of every moment and activity.
These are the pillars of the mind engineering approach. The ego mind
is developed in childhood based on the experiences and conclusions drawn during that phase, which need not necessarily be the truth.

In a normal case, we are not aware of this aspect of our personality that drives our lives. So, we live in a state of unconsciousness (in the spiritual context), but we need to have a clearer and deeper awareness of everything, ourselves, others, the world, the goal towards life and a new approach in life. We need to address the basic questions of life: ‘What is the goal of life? Who am I? Is the material world real? Is the world linear? Why do we follow a negative pattern of thoughts, emotions, behaviour, etc.?’ Higher awareness of all these vital perceptions and aspects of life will help us change our beliefs, perceptions formed in the subconscious mind and patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviour (the programme)—this will help us transform and reach a state of awakening.
This higher awareness will help us become acquainted with the reasons behind conflicts and pain in life, and the various strategies and illusions created by our ego-mind due to which we lead a life of emotional reactions relating to the past or future. With higher awareness and certain practices, we will be able to segregate or refine the present moment or the reality from the illusory continuum of past–present–future, and gradually remain focussed in the present moment and its experiences, where there is no problem, no mental pain and suffering—this
is the state of awakening.

When there is a shift in awareness in everything in life, when our life is anchored in the present moment, our quality of experience from one moment to another will be of a higher order. Our brain, mind and every cell of the body will respond positively to create good health, joy and wellness in life.
Pain, a sense of lack and a sense of separateness are the basic nature of the ego-mind, which it maintains and strengthens by creating negative emotions and identifying with false images. In short, life in the negative zone adversely affects our health and wellness. So, the ego-mind will use all our intelligence to find justifications and strategies to resist change or transformation towards the positive zone, where it fears losing its control over us. So, the ego-mind will resist any opportunity, idea, effort or initiative to change or transform into the positive zone that we should be aware of.
Managing the Resistance of Ego-Mind, the Challenging Problem
When a person becomes aware of the ego-mind’s resistance to change and lives with consciousness identity, the ego-mind loses its control on us and its survival comes under question. In a later chapter, we will see various strategies that the ego-mind deploys and the illusions it creates to resist change. So when we are in the transformation process, the ego-mind is in a fight for survival. It uses all our intelligence to win the war with our true self to resist change.
Stress and Consequences
Today, everybody lives in a state of stress, irrespective of whether they are rich or poor, employed or unemployed; stress is the order of the day. Stress is associated with negative emotions,which have an adverse impact on the health of human beings. Free radicals are the most harmful molecules in the body; at higher cortisol levels (stress), excess calcium enters our brain cells and produces free radicals, which trigger many illnesses,
including faster aging.2 High cortisol also causes damage to mitochondria, resulting in fatigue.3 It has been reported that many cancer patients have had some sort of severe negative
emotional experiences, causing hurt, guilt, vengeance, ill will, etc., a few years before the detection of cancer in their body. What is the biochemistry behind this? There is a gland called the adrenal glands just above the kidneys; it normally produces
the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. The adrenal gland is directly connected to the pituitary gland, which is the master gland regulating other glands. The pituitary gland, which is connected mainly to the hypothalamus, senses various signals and situations and sends the required signals to other glands for multiple functions depending on the nature of the situation. When there is severe stress, negative emotion, or threat to existence, they generate intense fear, which triggers the body to prepare itself for facing threatening or dangerous situations.
This information is sent to the pituitary gland, and it, in turn, sends signals to the adrenal glands to produce cortisol and adrenaline. Nature envisages that human beings need to face life-threatening situations, like ancient man faced wild animals, where two options were available for his survival: he could have run away for safety (flight) or faced the animal
with strength (fight); both the options require a high levels of energy.

The cortisol and adrenaline will increase to increase the heartbeat, lead to deep and frequent breathing for more oxygen, strengthen the muscles with more blood and supply extra glucose for increased energy. As our survival mode or brainstem is fully activated, the blood from the neocortex will be squeezed and diverted to the brainstem, reducing our rational thinking ability. But in the modern era, as people identify with the ego-mind, threats to the ego-image from life situations at home, workplace or in social interactions are perceived as a threat to existence that activate the defense mechanisms and biochemical processes. When glucose and insulin levels are up for many days routinely, we develop a state of insulin resistance, which is the precursor of type 2 diabetes. It will be accompanied by hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, etc. Another unhealthy situation arising out of prolonged high sugar is the tendency to activate cancer cells. It is found that ‘stress leads to increased adrenal-cortical activity and consequent deficiency of T-cells, impairment of host defense system and increased HPA axis activation.’4 Short-term stresses from challenging situations are not much harmful to the body, but long-term stress will take a heavy toll on our health.
It Is a Medical Emergency to Transform
Let us look at long-term stress more closely at the cellular level. It is a widespread belief that our genes control our biology. Recent research findings reveal that instead of genes, the environment predominantly controls and influences our cells’ health.6 A cell’s life is controlled not by its genes, but mainly by the physical and energetic environment, which includes our thoughts, emotions, perceptions and belief in humans. We are all made up of about 40 trillion cells. Research suggests that our negative and stressful lifestyle has a severe impact on our health. When negative emotions, like fear, are experienced, the production of bio-chemicals of love, like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and oxytocin, gets blocked. It also causes the release of stress hormones and inflammatory agents, which lead to a stoppage of growth and even death of cells. Medical science tells us that most illnesses are due to negative thoughts
and emotions. So, stress causes an adverse impact on all aspects of health and wellness.
Thus, mind engineering wisdom is necessary to be able to become aware of the lifestyle driven by the ego-mind, its consequences and decide to reprogramme our subconscious mind to have higher awareness and experience a shift in perceptions and beliefs. This will help us lead a healthy, positive and happy life. So, we are in the midst of a medical emergency of transforming towards the positive zone.
Is There a Ray of Hope, Can We Transform?
There is a ray of hope. The most significant sign of the ray of hope is the increasing awareness among human beings about the collective madness of an ego-mind-driven life. More and more people are becoming aware of the true path of life in resonance with the frequency of the creator—the true spiritual path. Spiritual awakening is the urgent need of the hour for the conservation of the earth as well as the survival of humanity. Spiritual awakening will facilitate the ‘flowering’ of one’s personality to its full potential and help one lead a meaningful and happy life.
A detailed study conducted by Mathew A. Harris, Caroline E. Brett and J. Deary shows that our personality traits can be totally changed or transformed over a period. The study, which extended to a period of 63 years, concluded that those who take responsibility of what happens in their life can dramatically change their life to make way for positivity and health. The Transformation Process and Awakening
Mircea Eliade’s studies commented upon the Patanjali Yoga practices and referred to it as a process of systematic decommissioning of human beings, which can result in ‘rebirth to a conditioned mode of being’.8 Jesus said that everybody needs to be reborn as children to enter heaven, and the kingdom of heaven is within. The basic teaching of Buddhist practices is to identify, deconstruct and remove these mental fabrications with a view to realize nirvana or transcendence—the deconditioned ego-mind. The school of Mahayana Buddhism, founded by Nagarjuna, teaches us how to systematically decommission the beliefs and perceptions of the ego-mind to reach a state of pure consciousness called the middle way or emptiness.
A similar process is involved in the mind engineering process of transformation from the ego-mind identity to consciousness identity. Usually, the following steps are involved in the transformative process through higher awareness. Like the story of a jungle boy who was brought up by monkeys, we are not aware of who we really are. We are not aware that we are living consciousness or spiritual beings with human experiences. So, the process involves the following stages.
i. Receipt of information: We get information about how the subconscious mind was developed and how the ego-mind is operating and controlling our lives.
ii. Knowledge stage: Information is received by us as new knowledge about the mind and consciousness, that we are identified with ego-mind, and in reality, we are not the ego-mind, but consciousness.
iii. Awareness stage: We become increasingly aware that we are living consciousness with the help of introspection, meditation, scientific and spiritual knowledge, higher awareness, wisdom, the experience of glimpses of consciousness and living examples of others.
iv. Wisdom stage: We gain the new wisdom that we are living consciousness, spiritual beings, but we practically find it difficult to shed old perceptions, beliefs, patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviour.
v. Experience: We become fully aware that we are spiritual beings with human experiences. With this higher awareness, we need to practise and experience life as living consciousness. We should have a life of human experiences of manifesting pure consciousness.
Questions Before Us
So far, without awareness, we have been living in the negative zone, creating negative thoughts and emotions, and following an unhealthy lifestyle. This lifestyle produced many toxins in
the body and created conflicts and pain, and we were wreaking havoc in our lives without awareness. Now being aware of it, what do we do? Will anybody create hell for himself deliberately with awareness? If so, what do we call him? Foolish? Insane? We have seen that in society, many transformed to the positive zone and started living a successful and fulfilling life. If there is a wonderful opportunity for a person to be successful in life, and if he is not availing it, what will we call him?
You are in the same position.
The mind engineering process provides that wonderful opportunity; it is a journey towards the positive zone, transformation and awakening. Are you willing and ready
without resistance?

Let us say YES and start the journey step by step. We have already taken the first step, and each subsequent chapter is one step of higher awareness towards the ultimate goal. The next step is introspection about the urgent need for transformation and the stiff resistance to change.

Liked what you read? Get the book here