Why Discovering Yourself Is Good For Your Mental Health?

Happiness and peace are the key elements in having a great mental health but most people confuse happiness with pleasure

Discovering oneself has different meanings for different people. For some, it may mean to know what they are good at and what their skills and areas of expertise are, whether they are good at sales, marketing, business, problem-solving or they are good at music, dance, sports or any other activities. But the true meaning of discovering oneself means understanding oneself better, what gives us happiness, contentment and peace of mind.

Happiness and peace are the key elements in having a great mental health but most people confuse happiness with pleasure. We think we are truly happy, when in reality, what we are experiencing are only momentary pleasure, fleeting moments of what we think is happiness. We, humans, are a product of body, mind and ego.

We think that happiness comes from the fulfilment of the desires of the body, wishes of the mind and satisfaction of the ego in the form of success, name, fame and wealth. But the truth is that real happiness can never come from achievements, people or possessions.

While we may have brief moments of joy when a desire is met, we are bound to experience sorrow again because we are likely to want something else and not all wishes are fulfilled. Thus, we tend to get disappointed. It is as if we are on a merry-go-round of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, sun and rain, again and again. We cannot ‘become’ happy; we have to ‘be’ happy, moment by moment. Happiness is not a state of becoming, happiness is a state of being. And this state of being is important for a good mental health.

People think that a good mental health and peace can be achieved if we can control our mind. But the mind cannot be controlled because in reality, the mind does not exist at all. It is an illusion. Have you ever seen your mind? No! The mind is not a physical entity like heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys and brain. It is just a bundle of thoughts, a thought factory. Unlike the popular belief that the mind is the king, our mind is, in reality, our enemy and it robs us of our peace and happiness by constantly bombarding us with thoughts, creating negative poison like fear, jealousy, stress, anxiety and even depression.

We cannot control our mind but we can still it. How can we still the mind? How can we stop thinking? Just like we can stop eating, drinking and walking, we can stop thinking too. Consider the mind to be like a monkey. This MONKEY has a tail, the ‘EY’, that is Ever-Yelling and Ever-Yearning. This ‘MONKEY MIND’ constantly lashes us with various thoughts. We have to carefully watch it, catch it and latch it and finally, tame it by cutting off its tail, the EY, and make it into a MONK. Once we tame the mind, the thoughts produced every moment, the Mental Thought Rate or the MTR will slow down gradually, from more than fifty thoughts per minute to forty, then thirty, then twenty and ultimately, to just one thought per minute. This is the state of consciousness. And in this state, we process each thought individually by using the power of discrimination with the intellect that shines in our consciousness. This is also called the state of 'thoughtlessness' or 'mindfulness'. In this state, we still the mind. When we still the mind, we kill the mind and then peace and joy, in consciousness, we can find. 

Consciousness is also the state where we discover our true selves, we have the realisation of the truth of who we are. Discovering oneself in the right way and discovering what we actually are, paves way to a healthy body and overall well-being.

Good mental health can be experienced when we are enlightened with the truth, when we have the realisation that we are not the body, mind and ego – we are the Atman, the Soul - a Spark Of Unique Life, a part of the SIP, the Supreme Immortal Power, and ultimately realising that we are the Divine Soul. Realising that we are the Divine Soul and living in the realisation of the truth of who we truly are will eradicate the triple suffering of our body, mind and ego, help us achieve peace, happiness and ultimately, a great mental health.