The mind of the human beings is the storehouse of immense power. It not only creates desires, it is also instrumental in fulfilling those. It is in this light that the adage “Where there is will, there is a way” has to be seen. But often people have doubts about the capacity of this wonderful power house to deliver. The reason being that they find many of their desires unfulfilled.

There is a need to understand this in greater depth. In fact, the very people who doubt the power of the mind in helping them get what they want may have had experiences to the contrary. That is, they would have achieved what they desired on certain occasions. This is then the issue that needs to be analysed. Why at times you get what you desire and why at times you don’t needs to be probed.

The answer lies in the subconscious mind. Apparently, this subconscious mind is dormant, but that does not mean it is fully inactive or comatose. It is still working, though the activities related to that work may not be felt or perceived by the conscious mind. What you desire may be achieved by you when you are able to harness the power of the subconscious mind, and people have experienced this. Yogis and saints perform wondrous feats which are commonly supposed to be miracles, the uncanny events.

Psychologists put such phenomena under the broad umbrella of parapsychology. But those explanations notwithstanding, the fact remains that such things do happen that fall beyond the realms of apparent rationality. Apparent because rationality itself is bounded by limitations and at times cannot extend beyond a certain level.

Of course, mathematical science has a very prudent answer to such issues in the theory of chance, the probability of the likely and the unlikely. But chance itself is another fuzzy concept and cannot be explained in black and white. An important question that crops up is that can human mind be trained to arouse the powers of the subconscious every time one desiresIJ This is what is still not understood because the ability to arouse the subconscious depends on many factors and controlling all of them is not possible every time.

But let us examine how desires can be fulfilled with the power of the subconscious. People often attribute this to God or prayers, but why is it that God intervenes and prayers work sometimes and not every timeIJ There lies the answer. It is the power of desire, the intensity, and the strength with which the subconscious is invoked or aroused.

In the Ramcharitmanas, there is a beautiful couplet: “Jehike jehi par satya sanehu, so tehi milaye, na kachhu sandehu.” The meaning is that whosoever desires something with real intensity, he will certainly get it. This is the essence of the Biblical canon: “love the lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

In Paulo Coelho’s classic work of fiction, The Alchemist, it is said that if the intensity of the desire is genuinely strong and comes from the heart, the forces of the nature conspire to ensure that it is achieved. And this lies behind the ancient proverb: “The doctor dresses the wounds and the God heals it.” Cases of medical wonders are legion and the reason is patient’s faith.

The writer is a professor of management and public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com