Working with Thoughts🔗

Mind filters Reality

We are all familiar with the phrase, 'Seeing is believing.' We have complete faith in all the information that we receive through our senses.

We don't know that what our senses perceive is not what gets finally recorded in our mind!

Do you know, only about ten percent of what we perceive through our senses gets recorded in our conscious mind? Everything else goes directly into our unconscious mind. Just see in your own life. Do you remember all the buildings, all the trees, all the signboards you pass on your way to work every morning?

No!

But do you know, if you were put under hypnosis and asked the same question, you would recall each and every detail of your morning drive! The only thing is, all this information is not stored in our conscious mind. So long as this sensory perception does not interest us in some way, it does not get recorded in the conscious mind.

Just think of the traffic jam in our minds if we were consciously recording each and every sensory perception!

What happens to those sensory perceptions that do get recorded in our conscious mind?

These impressions are sorted out by parts of our mind and identified.

Not only does the mind filter perception, it also distorts whatever we perceive.

How exactly do we receive data, process it and make decisions? Let us try to understand the process.

For example, let us say you are seeing something through your eyes. When you receive any information through your eyes, immediately the file goes to a space called the chakshu, which is something like a Digital Signal Processor (DSP).

Whatever you are seeing through the eyes is converted into a bio-signal, just like a digital signal.

Next, this file moves to a space called chitta which is just like the memory in a computer. Here the process of identification starts. For example, you are now seeing this book. This information goes to the DSP or chakshu and is converted into a bio-signal, and then it moves to chitta, memory.

The memory starts analyzing - 'This is not a stone, this is not a tree, this is not an animal…' The process of elimination happens in the memory.

Next, the identification happens: 'This is a book,'. This process happens in the manas. In the mind, you start identifying, 'This is a book', 'It is a book on spirituality', 'It is written by an enlightened being.'

After the identification process, the file moves to a space which I call ahamkara or 'ego', the decision-making center.

The ego you start thinking, 'In what way am I connected to this situation?'

If your past experiences with similar books were good, you decide to read the book. If your past experiences were not good, if you felt, 'Oh, this is not worth it, I felt very bored last time,' or 'I read similar books but did not feel any benefit,' if you feel negatively about it, you will decide not to read that book. The ego decides based on your past experiences.

This is the way your mind functions.

Now, the important thing which you need to understand is, the decision is taken unconsciously.

If the process happens in a straightforward way, things will go very smoothly in your life. Everything will be clear and straight! But this process does not always happen in a conscious, straightforward way.

In the whole process of thinking, your conscious mind has a very small role!

Suppose a person is standing before you. Your conscious mind identifies this person – it records whether he is known to you or not. That's all!

After this, the 'file' moves to your unconscious zone. In case you know the person, your attitude towards him and your actions are based on the samskaras (root patterns) that you have already stored in your mind about him. Even if he is unknown to you, his appearance of that person may trigger some unconscious response in you.

Be very clear: it is your unconscious mind which makes the final decision about how you respond to a situation.

And the unfortunate thing is, we are not even conscious that we are unconscious!

We think that we are making a very clear decision based upon our conscious understanding of the person. Actually, less than one percent of our decisions have a rational basis.

You may have noticed this in your own life.

For instance, if you were hurt or disturbed in a particular place, or by a particular situation, or by a certain kind of person, the next time you go to that place or encounter a similar situation or person, that memory will be awakened without your awareness.

You will go through the same low mood, even if you know logically that that place or person has nothing to do with your past experiences!

In this process, let us say the time taken for the conscious, logical decision-making process is Tp. The time taken for the unconscious samskaras to form their judgment is Tq.

If your samskaras don't have much power over you, your Tp will be shorter that your Tq. That is, your conscious process will happen faster than your unconscious process, and your decision will be based on awareness.

If your unconscious process happens faster than your conscious process (i.e. if your Tq is shorter than your Tp), naturally you are going to make a decision based on your own biases.

If you are carrying powerful samskaras, they can simply take over your personality without your knowledge. Impulsive behavior, irrational behavior, addictions – all these are nothing but your samskaras at work.

For instance, there is no smoker who does not logically understand that smoking is injurious to health.

But even though you are perfectly aware that smoking is injurious to health, when the data moves to the ego, the file takes a quantum leap! Before your logic can make the decision, some past samskara where you experienced pleasure through smoking simply jumps up and decides for you, and you just go ahead and smoke.

Understand, the more you cherish a certain kind of thought, the greater the chance that you will become aware only when such thoughts arise in your mind. The projector light which is inside you comes on, the awareness that you exist comes to life, only when those thoughts cross your field of awareness.

For example, if you enjoy lustful thoughts, it is only when lustful thoughts move across your mind that you become aware, 'I exist'. If you are unconsciously cherishing violence, it is only when violent thoughts arise that you come to life!

If you empower a particular thought again and again, that thought becomes the stimulus for you to become aware of yourself.

Naturally, your inner space responds to and strengthens only those kinds of thoughts.

This becomes a vicious circle, leading to the formation of a root thought pattern.

The greater the load of samskaras in your system, the greater the possibility that your actions and responses will be arising from your unconscious mind.

We are all familiar with the famous one-liner: 'I am the boss of this house, I have my wife's permission to say so!'

This is the state of your life also!

You may think you are the boss, but your unconscious engrams are leading you.

Meditation cleanses your inner space of the deep-rooted samskaras which decide your conditioned responses. In the superconscious meditative state, it is possible to relive and relieve your embedded memories, and effect the removal and dissolution of these samskaras that bind us.

A recent scientific study conducted by a leading spiritual organization in the USA has revealed that if a boxing tournament happens in a city, the crime rate in that city goes up. On the other hand, if a large-scale group meditation session happens in the city, the crime rate comes down.