The root of all problems -Thought Pollution!!

“The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” — John Milton

If the human mind is a place, who are the residents of it? — Thoughts. The power of thoughts is ineffable. Thoughts can make or break a person. The colossal strength of thoughts clearly indicates how severe and dangerous Thought Pollution could be.

We have heard of Air pollution, water pollution, environmental pollution and many more — But what is the root cause of all these, it is Thought Pollution!

Humans have become so self-centered that we have stopped thinking about our Mother Nature, who is the sole reason for our existence. Just for the sake of our comfort, we are recklessly using the resources of Earth, without paying any heed to the fact, what would happen if we deplete all the resources, how will our future generation survive without them? The ongoing Covid pandemic is a horrific response of Earth towards reckless acts of humans.

Netflix’s recent documentary, Seaspiracy, focuses on the ill-effects of plastic marine debris and overfishing around the world. The documentary debates that commercial fishery (again a human act) is one of the major components of marine ecosystem destruction. It is high time to ask ourselves, how many more pandemics, extinction, and decimation do we need to realize that it is all because of our reckless acts, which in turn is the result of our polluted thoughts. The only solution to this problem is that we have to learn to co-exist with Nature without harming it.

More than Love and Harmony that exist between humans today, there is hatred, jealousy, insecurity, disagreement. But why is it so? — simply because of thought pollution.

It has become our innate quality to judge and envy people based on our prejudices, religion, caste, gender, and many more parameters. All of these negative feelings have led to Intolerance, the most devastating outcome of thought pollution. Intolerance is the biggest problem with which human society is suffering, there is just one cure for this problem i.e, clean and positive thoughts. We all have to get rid of our negative emotions and understand that “The world needs Love and Love is all about giving and giving without expecting anything in return”.

Till now, we talked about how thought pollution is affecting our environment, our society, but now let's come to our own selves. Our thoughts are a reflection of who we are, so if you are thinking something bad and evil, it is actually you, who is evil. The quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our lives. To be very precise, by having polluted thoughts we are inviting our own self-destruction.

For instance, if you are pondering over a bad incident, cursing someone who behaved rudely with you, what actually you are doing is making your own life miserable, killing your own peace of mind, and polluting your own thoughts, ultimately leading to self-destruction. Our mindset has become such that we never think of forgiving, rather we plan of taking revenge even for the silliest things. That’s how the thought pollution has degraded the quality of our lives. Yielding to evil negative thoughts can turn one into a miserable, envious creature and in worst cases, into a criminal. Thought Pollution is the root of all problems, it destroys our environment, our society and ultimately us.

Our mind is a garden and thoughts are the seeds we plant. Habitual negative unhealthy, self-critical thoughts produce the weeds of depression, discontent, and anxiety in the garden of our mind. The opposite is also true. Planting positive, healthy, constructive thoughts will yield beautiful feelings such as gratitude, love, and joy.

Meditation is the best way of giving conscious concentration to positive and pleasant thoughts. Spiritual Meditation like Heartfulness Meditation would be even better as it will teach you how to come out of materialistic barriers and move towards salvation(Moksha). Also, we have to embrace whatever comes in our way and learn to forgive and let go of things. I would like to suggest experimenting with Heartfulness Meditation. With this, I come to an end.