Can we program our mind for achieving success?
So i heard that we can program our mind for achieving success whether it is material or spiritual so what does the bhagavad gita say about this the bhagavad gita primarily tells us that the mind is moldable and once it is molded in a particular way it functions in that way by default so changing that molding changing that programming requires time so now in in self-help circles when they talk about programming or reprogramming the mind it is centered on something like auto-suggestions auto-suggestions that means the auto-suggestions can be of different kinds and some of them can be helpful so at a simple level you know calm down some may get me too worried now the basically what we do through auto-suggestions is that we try to activate our intelligence so the mind is going through certain emotions we try to activate our intelligence and some people say that just when you are sleeping while you are sleeping or just before you go to sleep or just after you wake up hear some of your plans there are other books like tap the power of your conscious mind tap the power of your subconscious mind we say that at a transition between sleep and wakefulness your mind is very receptive so if you hear something at that time that those thoughts will go deep into your consciousness so now there is certainly some level of truth to the various techniques for reprogramming the mind and that's why as devotees even said that the last thought that we have is we offer obeisances and we pray to Krishna when we sleep we wake up we offer obeisances and we wake up we pray to Krishna so some devotees can sleep with some kirtans going on and that way that that principle is there the problem with material conceptions of reprogramming of the mind is often they assign omniscience to the mind that means for example there was this just a few years ago there's this very popular book called secret and it says that whatever you desire you will achieve so it is as you say so a woman stands outside a jewelry shop and sees a beautiful necklace and she just programs her mind oh i'll get this necklace and next day she finds a necklace around her neck or a young man sees a car and thinks i want this car and next day he's driving the car now this sort of visualization is it's this it is misleading in the sense that the mind is not omniscient the mind so it's not omnipotent the mind is not god and to think that just by desiring something just by visualizing something i will be able to achieve whatever i want that is unrealistic because there is apart from certainly uh there is our endeavor and then there is destiny both need to come together by which the result will drop so the standard example the puranas give is a farmer has to sow the seeds and plow the land that is the karma that is the endeavor and then there is a destiny the rains come and then when both of them come together in the fallow then the crops the harvest comes so now the visualization positive visualization can help in maximizing our endeavor if i am always thinking negatively i won't be able to do this i won't be able to do that i am like this only i am like that only i am useless then that negative thoughts will affect our own capacity to perform our endeavor will not be able to do so that is acknowledged fact that that of the way we think that will affect our behavior our our capacity to function so in that sense positive visualization can help us to maximize our endeavor that's like the farmer oh this field is so big this land is so so so rocky how can i plow all this and the thoughts itself will burden the farmer but it is not that the farmer just by thinking now rains will come that itself if the weather is not conducive but there are no cloud in the vicinity it's not that the thought is going to produce the rains so the visualization can help us to increase maximize our contribution so as devotees we can think so the previous night only when they are going to sleep tomorrow morning when i wake up i am going to chant attentively and i will be able to chant attentively i'll do my best that's all tomorrow from the night only i'm thinking tomorrow another day of struggle such a burden then that negative expectation will make things more difficult than they need to so it can the positive visualization devotees can use it for making sure that we maximize our efforts that we do the very best that we can do but to think that that will fulfill any and every desire that we have that is not true because we are not God and destiny cannot be changed just by our visualization so there is there is truth to it but often that truth that the potency of auto-suggestions is exaggerated beyond their valid jurisdiction so we can use it to maximize our endeavor but we shouldn't think that everything will work out just because i have an auto-suggestion because i have seen you've heard also there are some devotees who used to do a lot of auto-suggestion before and then when the auto-suggested things don't come about those those those gurus or those self-help teachers they give them a different kind of guilt oh you're not doing the auto-suggestion properly that's why it's not happening so you did auto-suggestion to stop under performance but then you get the guilt of not performing the auto-suggestion properly so it's not necessarily a solution to the problem which is useful in making doing our part but beyond our part there is also much that is there which determines the result and we need to acknowledge that.