How can we protect our consciousness?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, thank you.
So, when I talk about protecting our consciousness, what does it actually mean? Our consciousness is our most fundamental resource. Whatever we wish to do, we need our consciousness to do it. Whether it is study, whether it is to work, whether it is to have some loving relationship with anyone, whether it is to play, whatever it is.
If we are not conscious, we can’t do anything. If enjoyable sports which I like is going on, but if I am distracted, I can’t enjoy that sports. So, our consciousness is a fundamental resource which we need for doing anything in our life.
And this resource, because it is so important for us, for everything, it needs to be protected. That means, just like if I have my body, if I know that certain food items, if I eat them, then they have an unhealthy effect on me. So, then I will try to avoid those food items.
If I am say, vulnerable to cold, then I may decide to avoid cold drinks or other such items which aggravate my respiratory tract. So, we have to know our body and accordingly we avoid the foods which hurt us and we take the foods which are good for us. So, similarly for our consciousness, there are different kinds of inputs which come in.
So, if we are not careful about what kinds of inputs we take in, we may end up becoming unnecessarily agitated or pessimistic. One example today is that when I first came to America 2-2.5 years ago, one of my friends called me. He lives in a rural place.
He told me, I heard that many planes get hijacked. If you really want to go to America, what if you get hijacked? So, now actually, statistically, if you see the number of casualties because of road accidents is more than because of the flights. But often the flight accidents, they are what get more news coverage.
So, bad things always happen in the world. But today, because of the interconnectedness, because of the net, we get to know of bad things happening all over the world. And that’s why we may get too much negativity.
Or we think the world is a terrible place. Well, there have been problems in the world all the time. But, if I tend to get very pessimistic because of reading news of violence here, disaster here, that, then I may have to decide, do I really need to read all this? Now, it’s not that we should stay ignorant, but we have a purpose in our life.
And if that purpose is being impeded by reading about all the negative things in life, and that is happening in different parts of the world, then better not read about that. Same way with our interactions, our relationships. Some people just like to talk about the negative of others.
They just like to gossip. There is a problem here, this person did this, this person did this, this person did that. Now, how helpful is that for us? So, we have to see.
For some people, they talk about others negatively and it doesn’t change their mind. They just talk about it and then it just goes on. But if we hear something bad about someone, then while we are interacting with them, that’s always there in our mind.
And it repeats well in our functioning. So, we have to find out what our consciousness gets hooked on to, gets glued to. And if that is not healthy, then that kind of perception we may have to minimize.
Let me complete this. So, basically if we could protect ourselves, we find out what it is that we are attached to, what we get agitated by, and try to minimize that. We may not be able to eliminate it entirely.
But at least if we are aware, we can either avoid it or minimize it. It’s basically another example. If I know a particular road is bumpy, then if possible, I’ll try to take another road.
Or at least when I’m going on that road, I’ll go slowly, that I won’t get heavily jolted. So, like that, if we know that certain stimuli agitate our mind, they contaminate our consciousness, then we can either avoid those stimuli or minimize our exposure to them.