Self Control and Will Power through Meditation – Happiness Challenge Day 17 | Swami Mukundananda

it has said good ideas are a dime a
dozen but they are not worth a broken nickel until you implement them we may
have the knowledge of all the libraries of the world in our hand but if we don’t
utilize it that knowledge is really no help to us so the gap between knowledge
and its implementation is bridged by one word called disciplined today on day 17
of this happiness challenge let us ponder over the importance of discipline
and self-control in our lives in the 1950s a researcher in Stanford called
wanted mission did an experiment to study the self control of four-year-old
toddlers his experiment was ingenious he would leave the child in a room by
itself with a suite in front having told the child if you like you can enjoy this
suite but if you hold on for 20 minutes I will
come back take this away and give you two sweets instead for some of them it
was a no-brainer there is a suite it is the source of pleasure there is nothing
to think about eat it some children held on for two
minutes but then succumbed and ate it some
children held on for seven to eight minutes and some children continued
holding on for the full 20 minutes and were rewarded with do sweets many
years later the study was continued to find out how the children had been
performing in life some very interesting facts came out it was discovered that
the children with maximum self-control they were excelling in studies as well
they had better physique they were not plump they were better at interpersonal
relationships because they could control their emotions and their moods they were
having less disrupted marriages or lost jobs and practically no criminal
conviction on the other hand the children who were at the lowest end of
the spectrum without self-control had been getting into all kinds of problems
they were dropping out of their college they were losing jobs they were having
broken marriages and many of them had repeatedly visited the prison as well
this led to the interesting observation that one important factor that
correlates to success in every field of human endeavor is self-control
discipline based on the virtue of willpower social researchers further
analyzed this and they discovered that proficiency in any field of human
activity is directly correlated to two words use of the personality one is the
intellect and the second is the willpower now
intellect is somewhat in it there is not so much one can do to expand it but
willpower is something that is very much in our hands and this is also the
attribute that is maximum tested in modern times
because our ancestors a few centuries ago did not have as many willpower tests
as we do today you may be working in your office on the dreary task of
preparing the memo for your boss but at the mere click of a mouse you can
take your mind away to surf the Internet so in the days of social media internet
video games and television channels the challenges to willpower have multiplied
greatly now as grown-ups what can we do to enhance our willpower fortunately for
us willpower to grows with exercise like the muscles – for example if you engage
in typing the portions of the brain required for typing keep on adding the
gray matter similarly this will power comes from the prefrontal cortex of the
brain and the more you exercise it the more it develops
thus willpower – can be enhanced with exercise and the best exercise for
enhancement of our self-control is meditation meditation entails avoiding
distracted thoughts though they may be pleasurable
keeping our focus on the object of meditation though it may be painful
studies have revealed that in a three hour meditation session the functioning
of the brain changes and in 11 hours of meditation the brain activity transforms
completely so utilize the stool and grow in your self-control and willpower to
increase your proficiency in all fields of human activity if you are not already
meditating let today be the day when you launch yourself on this wonderful
journey and even after that if you find that your willpower is still
insufficient I’ll give you another tool tomorrow which is the power of habits
thank you you