This is a follow up from the post I wrote on symbols. I said then that there is a possibility that we can use symbols to control ourselves and make us do more of what we want to do than what we end up doing in the moment. Today I say that we can do the same perhaps in tandem with the symbols or without them, with rituals.
Rituals are not new as we might think or too old as some would argue. We still practice them in our regular daily lives without paying that much attention to it. Remember the prayer in the morning or when your parents asked you to say a silent prayer to the picture or idol just near the entrance just before you leave for work or school. Think of the lamp lighting ceremony that we have in the beginning of any festival or project. We do it all the time and we do not notice it. We have been doing this from the old days as well. Remember the rituals where the women will pray before the men went to fight in the wars. And the rituals of the different festivals where we do the same things that we do every year or basically the same thing but in different ways. So why not develop a few rituals for ourselves? And how do these rituals help anyways?
Again it is all in the mind. When one steps out of the house after a prayer he has the added hope that god will look after him, he does not think of it consciously mind you. The same was with the women praying for their men when the went to the battle. Same is with the conch and shell and the trumpets before charging into the enemy lines - they all help boost the mind. The feeling of wellbeing and the feeling that there is something out there helping and urging us on. But is there?? No. And if we look a little harder we can say that they hardly make any difference because they are based on a elusive figure of God and of transparent and imaginary elements called wishes and fate and luck!! A thinking man line you and me will know this and dismiss it, how then can we use it to our benefit? How can the man who knows that they are mere hoaxes use it to boost him? This is where we mix science with the arts of the old. The ancient people were not blind, they knew what they were doing, at least the smart ones did. They knew that the people needed something to believe in, something supernatural, so that they could go and try to do the impossible. Again here it was always possible but the people thought it was impossible. We now know the truth so what will work for us will be a ritual that reminds us not of the God or the blessings of the ones we love but of ourselves. A ritual that will remind us of who we are and what we have done to reach here. When we next step on to go to war, whether it be an interview or a job, we need something to remind us that we have worked hard till now and that we have built ourselves enough to come to a point where we deserve it. The battle is won before the fight has begun because we have paid the price. There is nothing unreal here. It is the simple visible truth.
This ritual will work in two simple ways. When we are finally at the point where we begin the war or the job at hand - it might even be asking out that girl you want to ask out or go for that achievement you have been preparing for years - the ritual will remind us of what all we have gone through. All the last minute jitters will go away and we will know that we deserve to win this fight. That we have changed from the person we were before we started preparing and now have become some one who is worthy of the prize. That alone can do away with all last minute apprehensions and the battle as they say is half won.
The other way the ritual helps is in the preparation. The ritual must be repeated at the beginning of any leg of the preparation. That way the person will be focused at the job or the practice or the preparation exercise at hand. He will know that a miss here or a half attention or half effort here will have a heavy price to pay in the end when he is about to perform at the test. When he performs the ritual then - he will know that he did not do enough at that moment of practice. This is fear enough for a person to make sure that he puts in all that he has at preparing for the task. It is also an incentive for the one who believes that what he is doing now is futile and that it will come to no good. When he performs the ritual he will know as he can almost see himself performing the ritual in the end and feeling satisfied that he did enough to be deserving of this prize that he is after.
There is much that needs to be thought of before one can safely say that the ritual is infallible. Hell, there may not be any way in which it can be made so. But over time it can become the driving force in the achievements that we make. It is a matter of habit. Designing the ritual is again something that needs to be thought about. How can it be so simple yet so definitive that it can be applied to all targets in life. Something that can be the driving force to be a better competitor and perhaps to be a better man.
More on this when I understand some more......
And hey, feel free to tell me if there is something that you feel will help in figuring out the problem.
Later
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