“When should I begin to acquire good habits?” a young boy asked his learned teacher.
“How old are you?’ inquired the teacher.
“Eight years old, sir.”
“Then you have just lost eight years,” the teacher replied.”
Everything that we do in our life is primarily born from our conditioning and habits.
We present ourselves to others like a graceful river, shimmering, pure, and flowing with serenity and calm however beneath this perception of stillness lies the undercurrents of our desires and habits, powerful and unseen.
These habits affects us in many ways such as: Being a hindrance in fulfilling our destiny, creates emotional chaos, impact on our physical wellbeing, and wastes our energy etc. Bad habits will have serious spiritual implications, detach us from the lord and from society as well as those we love. We must be aware and vigilant over our habits. A smoker will be told many times and by many people about the consequences of smoking but unless he does not witness and understand the folly of his actions he will not break the bad habit of smoking. Over eating, smoking etc. are bad habits which will have consequences on our physical wellbeing but that is not a sin. However there are other bad habits such as harming other people, idle gossip as a sin and these habits will take away our inner happiness and contentment.
If you wish to discover the richness of your life then lose your bad habits.
Habits can be duplicated and can become our second nature. Therefore we should always be aware of the type of company we keep.
Learn to conquer your habits or they will conquer you.
Our Lifestyle at home can have an impact on the children and will tell the world the type of people we are. Smoking, overeating, over sleeping, irresponsible talking are few of many habits that we live by .We need to believe that our habits can change and that strength must come from our inner commitment to improve otherwise habits will be very difficult to change. We need to drop our bad habits bit by bit.
We need to witness our habits and not to focus on the bad habits of others.
Life evolves but habits do not. (We can see a 50yr old behaving like a child),
Habits are born from a pattern of our repetitive behaviours and if we try hard to change without a deep understanding of why we behave in a particular manner then our habits will become more resolute and challenging.
In Sikhism the prophets known as Guru jee gives us effortless realisation through Gurbani (the Sikh Holy Scriptures) and an understanding that our mind is no more than an accumulation of bad habits that have arisen from our conscious mind and if consistently repeated will sink deep into our unconscious state becoming our second nature
Habits are governed between our realisation and ignorance.
Like the rein that controls the wild horse, learn the importance of the ‘reins’ that control the mind.
Select your company and surroundings wisely as early habits will be the template of your future life.
Live in moderation, live in unlimited virtue, and understand the consequences.
The words of the holy scriptures of all denominations and the holy saints are like reservoirs filled with water. We as students must dive into and drink the nectar of wisdom from these divine pools, and learn to live in the way of the holy. In this way, we will be free from our bad habits.
Under the cloak of bad habits, we will never find our true self
Please remember that our strongest habits are implanted early in life, therefore upbringing and education are such powerful shapers of the person-to-be. Since as children we learn principally by imitation hence to form the right habits we must have good role models in our lives and we should spend as much time as we can with such people.
Remember if we cannot control our habits, then there will be no way we will be able to improve the quality of our life.”
United Humanity