decision making

Cleaning inner faculties for improved decision making

What are the five energies of the soul that we need to bring together for accurate decision making?

As times become more and more fragile and difficult, it is essential that we understand and refine the process of keeping our inner faculties clean and clear.

In India, the local governance in villages consists of five elders who come together to take decisions. The leader of the panchayat is called the Sarpanch. Just as in the villages, a decision is taken only after the panchayat has had a meeting, we must hold a panchayat in our consciousness.

We need to bring together the different energies of the soul. When we do that, we reach a decision that is accurate. The five energies of the soul are – mind, conscience, heart, attitude and memory track. The Sarpanch is the intellect.

Intellect

The vessel in which we hold spiritual understanding is the intellect. Everything in human life depends on what is going on within the intellect. So the first thing is to check what sort of understanding our intellect has. Is the intellect caught up with materialistic desires or is it filled with spiritual understanding?

When we receive God’s wisdom we understand the self, God, time and the laws of karma–all these are the essential aspects of the divine intellect that has been given as a gift from God. The Sarpanch is the divine intellect. We have to keep it divine.

To make sure that the intellect stays sato (clean and pure) we need to overcome the tamo (impure) and rajo–the middle stage in which there is a fluctuation between faith and doubt, criticism and benefit. It comes by remembering spiritual knowledge throughout the day. Then we don’t see things from our perspective, but we let God’s wisdom act as the guiding light for the soul.

When we keep the intellect sato–filled with God’s wisdom then it can be satoguni–able to see virtues in people. We don’t mind what is right or wrong we just have good wishes and feelings for everyone. The process of keeping the intellect clean and clear is a process of constant attention.

Mind

At a time when we need to take a decision, we need to let the mind become quiet. Keeping God’s wisdom in the intellect and allowing it to be connected with God gives us power and clarity. If we haven’t practiced keeping spiritual knowledge in the intellect and keeping the mind still for a few moments it is never going to be still enough for us to be able to take an accurate decisions.

Sometimes we may not have easy access to external quiet space so we need to create a quiet sacred space within ourselves.

Conscience

Next is the conscience. When the intellect is without spiritual wisdom the conscience becomes dysfunctional. An intellect turned away from spiritual knowledge is influenced by day-to-day experiences and the mind starts speaking its own language. What do we hold in our intellect the whole day–is it spiritual knowledge or what people say?

The ego is so deep in human beings that when we make a decision we always feel it is right. We cannot see our own ego, just as we cannot see our own face until we use powerful mirrors and there is strong light. When we keep God’s wisdom in the intellect the conscience is able to develop and become strong. The quiet mind is able to listen to the voice of the conscience.

Heart

Before we implement what our conscience says, the heart also has a major role to play. Our mind could be quiet and our intellect and conscience could make a decision, but if our feelings are moving in another direction are we going to do what we have decided? We all make promises that we don’t keep. The intellect has an interesting role to play in cleansing of feelings. It doesn’t happen simply through understanding, feelings need something else. The intellect is also the link with God’s love. The love that we are drawing from God is the medicine that heals our feelings.

When we sing praise of God we praise Him as the Mother and Father. The first one is the mother–who gives sustenance. It is the mother’s love that’s able to accept the child that’s hurt and to heal its wound. It is unconditional and non-judgmental love. There is total forgiveness and total acceptance. So let us seek this connection with God and let his love heal and cleanse our feelings. Also we have got the intellect filled with wisdom, the mind still, the conscience clean and powerful and the heart filled with good clean feelings. We can be an effective instrument for God in a genuine way only if we have been through this process of healing the heart with God’s love. Then the heart is filled with enthusiasm and motivation to move ahead.

Attitude

We still need to sort our attitude. We are not always aware of the attitudes we carry. Sometimes cynicism comes into our attitude because we are not able to fulfil the ideals that we hold. Cynicism, discrimination, inequality, injustice – all these attitudes influence our decision-making and relationships.

Our attention is outwards and we don’t give time to looking inside. When we look inside we become aware of the greatest wonder of all–the soul. We clean our attitudes with God’s wisdom. When we churn that knowledge and use it, our attitudes are cleaned and they create a sacred space to make decisions in the right way.

Memory Track

The last energy is the memory track (chit). Our memory track has recorded within it all the things we have been through. But we can be selective about the way we play them out. We can feel gratitude or bitterness about our past experiences. As we become aware of the soul we experience the joy, intoxication and beauty of the original self. The more we do that it becomes easier to let the cleansing happen automatically.

It’s not only our experiences. There are many others that hold a place within our memory track. People pray to God, not to keep their faults in his memory. God will forgive us if we can forgive ourselves and change. So if we keep our own defects in our memory we are definitely going to hold the defects of others there. What the world needs today is mercy and compassion.

So experiencing God’s love (as a Mother) and the forgiveness is important. A mother forgives without any questions asked. Receiving forgiveness also includes honesty, realisation and commitment to change otherwise it is not real. When we experience and acknowledge God’s love, compassion and forgiveness, then our memory track is clean.

With all aspects of our energies clean and clear our decisions will be aligned with God’s wisdom. When each one of us aligns ourselves with God’s wisdom then we all come to the same decision. When all of us are in agreement with God’s wisdom the Golden Age (Satyug) will come.

BK Jayanti

The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (BKWSU) is an international non-governmental organisation, which intends to help individuals re-discover and strengthen their inherent worth by encouraging and facilitating a process of spiritual awakening.

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