Mantra for Over Thinking

Mantra for Over Thinking

Many people first come to a yoga or meditation class to learn to quiet their mind. You can feel like there is no off button and you are a slave to your mind’s thinking. Perhaps there is stress in your job, financial pressure, an ill family member or trouble in you relationship. You try to sit still for a moment and you still cannot shut off the voices swirling in your head. You may believe that if you keep on thinking about the problem, you will work out in your head.

Has their ever been a time when you had an interaction with someone and afterwards thought of all the things you should have said? It could have been a two-minute conversation and yet your mind can race for days. It is almost like by thinking about it, you can change the results of the conversation. Maybe that is the way our mind can make it right in our heads and make us feel better, but it isn’t reality.

By over thinking, you are consuming valuable prana (otherwise known as chi or life force energy). It takes prana in order to do what you want. However, over thinking actually consumes the same amount if not more prana then the action itself does. So you can get the feeling like you did something without the results. You will drain your system without physically doing something.

Guru Nanak said in the first Pauri in the Japji,

“Sochai Soch Na Hovai Je Sochai Lahk Var.” What Nanak means is that by thinking and thinking, you cannot think yourself closer to Truth.

Yogi Bhajan has recommended this mantra for pensive thinkers. It is really true what Nanak says. Have you ever been so consumed in a thought? Your mind just does circles around and issue and you continue to have the same thoughts without resolution. You are too much into your head and not in reality. Many times with over thought, the solutions we come up are not equal to the problem. This can cause us to overreact. You can even get physical reactions to the thoughts like if you were in an argument, the adrenaline will be pumping. This is where over thinking can get addictive.

So next time you are faced with a situation and find yourself over thinking, chant this manta or put it on repeat in the background.

Here are some good versions you can use to aid you in your practice: