Changing rooms in your mind for a day

That is a line from a Hafiz poem that I posted here.

I especially like that line because it is sometimes a challenge for me to let go of patterns of thought or only seeing life from a limited perspective. Getting to change rooms in my mind for day (or infinitely) graces me with a new view, a new vantage point, like looking out of a window of different room. When I have stepped into that new room and looked not only out the window, but what's around me, it enables me to see the dwellings I previously inhabited in my mind that are not healthy, productive, or positive.

A few years ago, I came across an article in Yoga Journal magazine that explained how we get stuck in certain rooms in our mind or mental grooves -

"According to yogic philosophy, we're born with a karmic inheritance of mental and emotional patterns—known assamskaras—through which we cycle over and over again during our lives.

The word samskara comes from the Sanskrit sam (complete or joined together) and kara (action, cause, or doing). In addition to being generalized patterns, samskaras are individual impressions, ideas, or actions; taken together, our samskaras make up our conditioning. Repeating samskaras reinforces them, creating a groove that is difficult to resist. Samskaras can be positive—imagine the selfless acts of Mother Theresa. They can also be negative, as in the self-lacerating mental patterns that underlie low self-esteem and self-destructive relationships. The negative samskaras are what hinder our positive evolution."


This helped me understand how it is possible to repeat old patterns of thought and ultimately behavior. I can create new patterns and the more I follow those, the more they are strengthened. 




 When I started reading the Bible, I found so many places that tell how I can change rooms in my mind simply by accepting God's love for me. 


"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing, and perfect will."
Romans 12:2


"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Romans 15:13