Mind is a monkey. Turn it into a donkey.

By Murli Chari

Our minds if given untrammeled freedom will run amok like an unruly horse leading us to a catastrophe. Mind is a repertoire of knowledge and experience which can be put to our great advantage or disaster. An unbridled mind can play havoc with us. . Mind is ruthless which once possessed with idiotic notion can trigger carnage and mayhem killing millions of people. Adolf Hitler perpetrated genocide of millions of Jews as he was under the grip of wily mind. Human history is replete with human mind gone awry like Stalin and Mao Zedong who decimated millions of people who questioned them. Human minds are singularly responsible for heartless violence, crimes, hatred, anger, misery and hedonism. In fact, we need to be in charge of our minds and not the other way round. . Mind without compassion is our and others’ worst enemy. It is our mind which props up our ego leading to disastrous consequences. Mind proves to be our bete noire causing immense avoidable miseries. Mind is capable of doing wonders and has done phenomenal feats when blended with compassion. Mind leads us astray when we fail to temper it with wisdom. A sound and untainted mind can do wonders beyond our wildest dreams. Mind is prone to scotch enthusiasm and altruism. Mind running berserk and wreak devastation is very common. Mind when in the role of a monkey plays pranks leading to many intractable problems. Mind with a humanitarian approach can add immense value to millions. When the mind goes berserk it triggers an avalanche of unmitigated disaster. We need to give due credit to human mind for making our lives beautiful and decent as it has created many life-saving drugs, luxuries, computers, comforts and ease of living. However, on the other hand many of the problems were also created by the wily mind. For mind to be of help we need to rein in the unpredictable nature of the mind. When the mind takes on the character of a prankster monkey it can run out of control creating chaos and confusion. The destructive element of mind is obvious in the carnages and violence we have witnessed in the world in the form of two world wars and the internecine skirmishes which are sporadic. It is the mind which creates chasm between warring nations, religions, races, castes, creates, gender and a myriad other reasons. Our mind is neutral and can be assigned the role of a monkey or a donkey.

Now that we know that mind is just a tool to be made use of we need to be wise not to become its slave. Once we consign the role of a donkey we can put lot of weight on it and still trust it to behave the way we want it to be. We all know how monkey behaves by being truant and enigmatic as it can resort to many pranks and keep us guessing. With mind in the role of a donkey we can be certain that it would carry the burden and be in our control.

We need to make a paradigm shift of switching from monkey to donkey to fully harness the capacity of our minds. This will ensure an egalitarian affluence with peace, harmony and sustained growth. No doubt, assigning the role of a donkey our minds would feel unromantic. With the monkey we would feel exuberant but it may come up with needless pranks costing us dearly.

However, we can switch roles from donkey to monkey depending on our needs. The role of monkey for the mind would be an asset when some out of the box solutions are the need of the hour. We would need a lot of wisdom and discretion whilst assigning the different roles. Human minds are a treasure trove of knowledge, intellect, and intelligence. To derive maximum benefit we have make the best use of our minds without allowing them to hold sway on us. It should be a slave like a donkey with a tinge of master like a monkey. Move over monkey and let donkey take over.