Spinning the Personality Wheel

S. S. Cowen described in On Talks with Sri Maharshi how a group of spiritual seekers were listening to the master when he suddenly asked out of the blue "Tell me, what is missing at this moment?" Nothing was missing! Everybody felt peaceful and full of bliss in his presence. All lust, professional ambitions, hunger for recognition had just vanished. But alas, for most of them this moment was just a temporary relief. Without the master all these desires would be back rather sooner than later.

A lot is written about the lower versus higher self perspective and our attempts of thought control, and like everyone else I have experimented a lot with these concepts. However, in the end I found that "mindful living" works best for me. Let me try to explain. You can think of yourself as a spinning wheel of personalities, which is getting activated by the people you spend time with, the memories that get activated, the thoughts you have, etc. Mindful living steers this wheel in a certain direction. The more time you spend on areas you aim to be, the more likely it is that associated thoughts, feeling and actions follow you in your desired direction. Of course there are moments of lust, greed, fear, etc., but they slowly vanish. And if they suddenly pop up out of the blue, you have a perfect opportunity to study what behaviour triggered it.