Conscious Autophagy of Psyche

I have always been intrigued by the phrase "Cogito, ergo sum". A Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes that appeared in his 'Principles of Philosophy'. The literal translation of this phrase in English language stands as "I think therefore I am." To elaborate it further in simpler words Descartes said, "We cannot doubt our existence while we doubt." He said that the very act of thinking implies a thinking mind. This is a proof of one's own existence as a thinker. There needs to be a thinking entity which can be called 'self' for any 'thought' to be there.

This implies that thoughts hold a prime place in our existence, they provide a frame to hold our views together and give a base to our outlook and attributes. In simple words they make us what we are. But do we really think what we are thinking? Our minds are constantly at work spinning yarns of weird ideas. As and when required prudent cognizance too gets woven in between like the traditional motifs scattered here and there in a Banarsi silk sari. This intermittent logical thinking keeps us sane and is enough to run our normal worldly life. But being humans is that enough? Are we ok with all the unnecessary shreds of thoughts piling up and occupying the prime estate inside our brains?

Our involuntary flight of fancy is like countless cogwheels inside our brain pushing each other to move in circles but missing a system of brakes. And we have no controls in our hands or inside our own brains to stop them, manipulate them or even change their direction. Like unsaddled horses our thoughts keep sprinting in the wild weave of imagination. Do we have a latent power to control our phantom mind? Can we scrub clean our mental space like we do our physical body? It may be difficult but I believe we have the potential to clean up our minds off the trash thoughts.

Our physical bodies are self maintaining and self healing entities in themselves provided we give them the right kind of food to turn it into bio available energy. They work on the system of Autophagy. Literally called 'self-eating', it's nothing but an intelligent recycling system inside our bodies. The damaged, dead, dysfunctional or worn out cells are knocked down in a metabolic process and consumed to make new cells or energy. Now my concern is - Can we perform a mental autophagy to cleanse and detox our mind? Can we vacuum clean our psyche and get rid of unproductive, negative, distracting and toxic brainwork? If we look back to our ancient Vedic ways of life, I presume we are armed with the gizmo of "Conscious Autophagy of Psyche"

Since ancient times our sages have been practicing mental hygiene through meditation and yoga-pranayaam. This conscious effort to work on the power of our mind and harness it in the right direction has been our natural lifestyle. We certainly can decide which thoughts will go into the fabric of our mind. We ought to pay attention to keep it as pure and clean as possible. We need to hunt down our fruitless or nugatory thoughts and devour them so as to give space to life uplifting positive vision. We can achieve this by conscious cleansing and up-cycling of our own psyche supported by conscientious practice of reflection. A habit of carving out some quiet time to sit back and self-examine needs to be cultivated. A quick meditation or pranayaam is the key to effective detox of our thoughts.

I am sure we all wish to own supraliminal psyche. Just a few minutes a day goes a long way. Come let's realize our will power and give rise to a mindful movement. So who is in for this much needed mental detox and autophagy???  I hope to see many hands rising up!!!