I always used to think that whatever ideas, thoughts and emotions I get are generated by me willingly. If I got a new approach to do a particular work, I believed that approach was generated by me consciously. I believed I was generating my anger, my happiness, my joy and my disappointment. I believed I was the one who created all the content in this blog of mine.
As I keep doing my practice of yoga and meditations day by day the perception of me keeps changing. One sitting of Shoonya Meditation (for more details please check http://www.ishayoga.org/advanced-programs/shoonya-intensive) made me realize that my Mind is like huge database of all the impressions that I had gathered throughout my life and what I call as "I" (which is not yet clear) only has the option to chose from this vast database. My mind is like a non-stop machine which keeps on churning out impressions from my life's database based on various factors in present situation that I am in.
Every day I sit for Shoonya various aspects of my mind comes into my consciousness. So far the picture is not clear and keeps evolving every day. I am now listing out the characteristics of my Mind which I have been able to understand. Please note that the characteristics which I am talking about is of the conscious mind which I am able to understand on a daily basis, I am not talking about the Unconscious, Super Conscious or the Super Duper Conscious ones.
1. It is the largest database
Whatever we experience in life whether it's on mental and emotional level will be recorded in our minds. It's like a 24/7 infinite data recorder which keeps on recording every thing that makes an impression on us. It does not discriminate on what kind of data it records and what source the data comes from.
2. Our five senses are the input points
The input points for our mind are our five senses which are Touch (Skin), Taste (Tongue), Smell (Nose), Sight (Eyes) and Sound (Ears). Whatever impressions that we have in our life, all of them have entered into us through these five channels and no where else. The raw data from these channels are later converted to things like Thoughts, Dreams, Ideas and Opinions.
3. It does not have anything beyond what we have experienced in our life
All our thoughts, dreams, opinions, ideas and actions comes out of the Mind's database. We don't do anything out of the boundary of our mind. No action of ours is done beyond this boundary, no thought comes to us from any other source than our Mind.
4. It can never be still
Our mind doesn't know anything called stillness. It derives it's energy from movement. The faster our minds move the stronger it becomes. It becomes very difficult to control a fast wavering mind. Our anxiety, disappointments and stress is entirely due this non focused and uncontrollable movement of our mind.
We can easily observe this phenomenon. If we just observe our thought patterns when we are on holiday just chilling, we will be able to see that it will be in relaxed and easy state. If we do the same when we are trying busy meeting deadlines in office, it will appear as if our mind is on steroids churning thoughts after thoughts at unbelievable speed.
5. Future is only a projection of past
As our mind cannot think anything beyond it's boundary, whatever we project as our future it will be always in the garb of our past. We are incapable of thinking anything beyond what we have experienced before, so our vision of future will be like taking the doll of our past and dressing it different way. In the end it will still be our past, but in a different attire.
6. It can be programmed and re-programmed
So is our Mind a big, glorified and dumb CPU? Well it depends on you.
Mind is a tool with certain characteristics. The biggest characteristic of it is learning and self programming. It keeps on learning from diffident life experiences that we have and form patterns of behavior For example if example if we kick a football with a certain force and with certain angle of our feet, the mind will watch the path of the ball and if the same result is repeated often with the same effort, it will form a pattern of the way the ball was kicked to the way the ball went on. Then every time when want the ball to go in this way our mind will automatically offer this pattern of kicking for us to use.
Like this our mind keeps learning from new experiences and programs various patterns which can be used in different situations. The quality and usefulness of it depends upon the life experiences which we allow to enter into it. The experiences makes database, the database makes the patterns and the patterns yields in our actions. So if we want to change our actions, we need to change the experience which are exposing ourselves to.
The good news is that these patterns can be Re-Programmed as mentioned next.
7. We always have a choice
So do we have choice in deciding how our mind should function, to tell it what to do and how to do it?
YES WE DO!
We can do it with by bringing more consciousness into our mind's functioning. If we can just pause for some time, relax and observe, we will be able to see how this machine works bit by bit. The further we observe the more it will revel. By observing our mind consistently we will be able to know the intricacies of it's workings in detail and the strings which control it. Slowly we will feel a distance from our thoughts and opinions, we will be able to choose which one to use according to the situation rather than taking action in compulsion to what our mind shells out.
This observation will free us and will eventually make us the Masters of the world's greatest machine.
So let the journey towards self discovery and total freedom begin!
JKS
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