Understanding the inner workings of your mind

A beginning of finding your original voice amongst the chaotic internal crowd

Your mind fundamentally is an accumulation of everything you have perceived till now. When you talk to someone, you gather information. When you see a beautiful scene, you gather that information. All your sense perceptions have created this giant mass of memory and information which you call ‘my mind.’

My nephew is now 5 years old. When he was born, there was no information received from outside. He was truly an individual, one-minded baby. But as he is growing up, he is starting to respond to symbols and words. He is starting to understand words like ‘doggy’, ‘bus’, ‘cycle’, ‘car’, ‘tractor’ …etc. He is now able to relate an object with words and sounds.

Thus he is gathering the information which our society as a whole has accepted. He is starting to learn how to behave to certain words and sentences. His fresh and innocent mind is being filled with information. Yes, this information will help him function better in society. But the more we are teaching him our ways, the more he will lose his originality. Eventually, his real empty and fresh mind will be filled with a large patchwork of our ‘teachings’. He will soon start believing that he is his name because we keep calling him by his name. He will never ask, ‘Who was I before I was named?’

This has happened to all of us. Patchwork after patchwork of information and conditioning from the world has buried deep the mind which is fresh and empty. The mind with which we usually work is just a crowd. It is a bundle of suggestions and information given by an endless number of people that you have met. Your mind was an empty canvas and everyone you ever met painted their own stroke on you by teaching you ‘stuff’.

Some of this information, when repeated too many times, has become your beliefs. They have become so deeply rooted inside your unconscious mind that you don’t even question them or worse, you don’t even think about questioning them! You just believe that it is true. But belief is not the truth. It is just some information that has been repeated too many times that you think it is the truth.

I have seen people who never question the idea of god. And I have also seen people who are so sure that god doesn’t exist. Now, if I say “I believe in god.” That doesn’t mean god exists. On the other hand, if I say, “I don’t believe in god.” That doesn’t mean god doesn’t exist. The idea of ‘god’ is also a part of the ‘stuff’ that you have been filled with. A newborn baby has no idea of what god is!

Everyone who talks about god without truly having known god is only talking about ‘the idea of god’ and not the god itself. An idea, a thought of god which was given to them by their parents, given to their parents by their parents, and so on.

Just like the idea of god, there are some of the most fundamental beliefs that all of us should at least question:

We tend to say “I am a man or a woman”.

Are you a man or a woman or do you just have the body of a man or a woman? There is a huge difference between the two. If you say, “I am a man”, everywhere you go, you will see in terms of man or woman. You will think as if a woman is another species.

On the other hand, if you say “I have only the body of a man”, your view towards gender will change drastically. You will not see women as a separate species. You will see that both are humans.

You can go even further. Now you say “I am a human”.

Are you a human or do you just have a form of a human? Would it make any difference if you had a form of an animal with the same consciousness?

If you say, “I am a human”, you see animals and all other species as separate from you. Now you will try only to rule the other species.

On the other hand, if you say, “I only have the form of a human”, you would see that you are a life, and there are other forms of life, animals, birds, trees all are same as you! With this view, you will naturally become more sensitive towards other life.

Do you see how each question breaks the wall of identity, which opens up new possibilities of looking at things? When I claim my identity of being something, I automatically create its opposite. I naturally divide. Then, I am in conflict with the opposite which I myself created in the first place!

The statements that you make about yourself are so deeply rooted that you never even think that they can be questioned. More questions you ask, more your mind will open up and more you will see that there is a prison of beliefs outside of which there is infinite possibility. Just by asking questions, you will start breaking the prison walls that years of social conditioning has created. Even the answers that you come up with should be questioned over and over again.

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Now, if you see that the mind is only full of ‘stuff’ that has been taught to us, then you also see that you can never have an ‘original’ thought. No thought that you have in your mind is your own. Every thought is simply a combination of a few pieces of information that you have gathered. If you can combine them in a very unique way like no one else can, we call it ‘innovative’ or ‘creative’. But every thought is just a rearrangement of what the mind already knows.

The mind is compared to a ‘monkey’ because it has so many voices inside it that there is no single direction. It keeps on jumping from one voice to the other.

You may also know that from experience. Sometimes you want something and at other times, you would love to avoid that same thing. In the evening, you see someone living a wonderful life, making so much money that you decide to be like them. You sleep obsessed with their lifestyle and dream of yourself being in that situation. In the morning when you wake up, you think it all seems fake, too artificial. You think it will not lead you to happiness and perhaps all this hard work is not worth it!

But note that this crowd is only on the surface of the mind. Deep within you, you still have that fresh, empty mind of a new born baby. That is why, whatever decision you make, it must come from deep within you. If it is made because of the influence of someone else, its effect will soon wear out and you will not find any satisfaction. Moreover, you will have lost valuable time and energy in doing things that are not congruent with each other.

The uncontrolled mind pulls you in opposite directions. It is maddening. It is insanity, and a poor use of the mind. It is a tremendous waste of energy. If this is done often, you end up getting nowhere. You just become more damaged because of being pulled in every direction.

That is why it is essential that the mind is fixed on one idea and not allowed to waver from here to there often. Mind works best only when it is concentrated, and focused.

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This article is taken from my book ‘Concentration and Detachment’

If you liked the logical approach to understanding your mind better, you will like the whole book as well.

I do not have any new knowledge to give. But I have a good ability to logically explain something that you might already know but need to remember and apply well. This book on Concentration and Detachment does it very well..

See you later, Have a great day!