It is our own choice what kind of attitude do we wish to harbor. People
complain to me Swamiji three days ago this person said this to me so I am
miserable. Really! Three days ago somebody said
something so you are miserable do you think it is reason enough to be
miserable?
There is the story of the girl who passed out of school and went to college
for the first time she was living in her hostel dormitory after four months in
the hostel she wrote a letter to her mother. She said mommy
one month after I had been living in the dormitory I got into trouble
I stole $50 from my roommate and with that I rented a motorcycle
unfortunately the motorcycle crashed into a lamppost and I suffered multiple
fracture on my leg but there was nothing to worry because there was this handsome
doctor down the road and he took me into his house to heal me we got to become
friends and we have decided to marry the only problem is in the blood test
there's a disease that shows up. I hope it gets cured before the child pops out
and we have to get married. After marriage mommy we shall be coming to
stay at home because my husband-to-be has lost his job and when he comes to
stay with you along with me I am sure you will enjoy his company but I wish to
warn you that he is from another religious tradition and he will keep
trying to convert you. The mother was practically pulling her hair
Then in the end she wrote mummy actually none of this is true, the only thing that
is true is I've got an F in algebra. I
wanted you to see it in the proper perspective, what is perspective attitude
it could have been so much worse.
Supposing you were born a few decades ago during the Second World War and you
had to sit in the trenches and fight, then how would your attitude have been
there is always scope for improving our attitude. Your attitude is in your hands!
Choose the proper attitude, that attitude will have multiple impacts upon your
life, it will impact your health. So many studies have been done, a Western
philosopher called Norman Cousins has written a book, a famous book called the
'Anatomy of an illness' he was diagnosed with leukemia cancer of the blood he
decided I will cure it with my attitude. Now, he went and got comedy movies from
the store and he saw them in succession 500 comedy movies and laughed and
laughed and laughed. The consequence was that after a few months his leukemia was
cured and he lived on for another 20 years. Studies have been done of
centenarians who lived beyond a hundred to determine what is the common factor
amongst these, is it the food they are eating or is it their abstinence from
alcohol or is it the exercise they are doing and the most common factor
determined was their cheerful attitude. In other words the attitude is impacting
health. Just today I read a study, there is you know in recent times medical
science has created this new thing after laparoscopic surgery now they've got
arthroscopic surgery minimally invasive surgery they put little
instruments and little microscopes to see. So one group of scientists they said
is it really beneficial? They did the placebo study, a group of patients were
done the actual surgery and a group of patients were done the surgery without
anything being cured. The whole sample was told look at random we are going to
do this but you are not going to know which is the group, which are the ones
who are not actually being operated upon and their medical condition was studied
at the end of two years. The placebo group and the non placebo group they
both had been cured to the same extent because the placebo group believed I
will become alright and mind-over-matter the attitude worked in healing them so
the attitude will give you the experience of joy or a misery, it will
bless you with good health as well and it'll impact your performance at work
Again let me tell you of interesting studies that have been done through the
scientific viewpoint one double-blind test was done
In the double-blind test a group of teachers they were told that you are
specially competent so you are being chosen, we are assigning to you
especially brilliant children. A group of children were told that you are
competent in your performance you are being assigned to special teachers
continue. At the end of the year the performance of those children had out
shown the performance of the rest of the group by twenty to twenty-five percent
so the teacher said we are so competent that is why we have done so well they
were told you are not specially competent you were just chosen at random
then the students must be so competent that's why they outperform, no the
students were also chosen at random but it was your attitude you were thinking
that I am competent I am teaching special children your attitude changed
the performance. Tests have been done 3,000 executives were asked to tick off
the reason why they dismissed their last three employees, various options 17% were
dismissed because they were corrupt another 18% were dismissed because of
interpersonal problems another 19% were dismissed because they
were disobedient and about 28% were dismissed because of lack of skills so
the conclusion was that only 28% of the employees lacked skills which made them
get dismissed and in the case of all the others it was
the attitude. So our inner attitude is so important.