Patience,
thankfulness, perseverance are the words kept confined to saying, hearing, reading and
writing. Application of these virtues in practical life is almost getting extinct. Life
today depicts ingratitude, impatience and dissatisfaction. It seems as if everyone is busy
in surpassing others in amassing worldly comforts and amenities. The man hardly finds time
to understand the real purpose of life when he gets completely exhausted in his craze of
hankering after material pursuits. The point worth consideration is "Why man of today
is: ungrateful, discontented?" The Sufi saints have opined that the reason for this
is that man today is not following the correct path or his life is not moving in a proper
direction. If we accept the view point of the Saints, we can conclude that man is completely devoid of the art of keeping the 'balance of
mind' intact.
The
thoughts of a man have a direct impact in the process of introspection. We have an
abundance of ideas around us. Ocean of thoughts is abreast, in front of us. All these
ideas keep on revolving around us all the time. The particular idea which we give place to
in our mind, similar thoughts start flowing to us. In other words these thoughts do engulf
us. But we are capable of taking in only such ideas of a level at which we are mentally
conscious. Our state of mind can lead us to peak heights and can bring us to degradation
also. As it is difficult to climb up to the heights, but is easier for everyone to step
downwards, hence man makes his life miserable by adopting easier path. Some people think
that our good or bad actions are the result of our luck but this is not so. It is
incorrect to link up good or bad actions with one's luck.
If we like to maintain our peace of mind, we shall have to endeavour to inculcate noble thoughts in our life and to get rid of the evil thoughts. One shall have to develop his mind to shed evil thoughts. We shall have to cultivate the habit of taking stock of our daily deeds. It is not possible straight away to divest the mind of evil waves. When we try to directly wipe out restlessness, we get more perturbed. In case we think that attainment of satisfaction is the aim, we can never get satisfied. It is also true that we do find it difficult to regularly take stock of our good and bad actions. In the beginning, we do hesitate to peep into over own mind and heart for self analysis. But as we start doing it, the task becomes easy with the passage of time. This is so because we start developing the ability to understand the reason behind dissatisfaction. The more we understand this, the more satisfied we feel in life. The regular review and introspection of our actions results in bringing virtues in life such as love, contentment and compassion. The knot of duality starts getting loosened under the regime of divine virtues. The sentiments of hatred and ill-will start diminishing, and disappearing and we feel pleasure in serving the mankind. Some people do confine the concept of pure and selfless love to lust and attachment which is improper. Love and peace and perseverance and purity of mind are inseparable. There can't be true love without purity of mind and thought. And, therefore, a kind and compassionate person can absorb the noble thoughts and actions. A stone hearted person is full of pride and pride is baseless. This illustration of a proud person can be compared to a flying kite without the chord, which considers itself to be higher than the woods and mountains. But this idea is baseless because the kite ultimately falls to the ground after some time. To conclude, it may be said that without treading the path of introspection it is just like having a pleasant dream to achieve and maintain the peace of mind and to lead a peaceful and blissful life.