Habits and Conditioning

Very often despite our best intentions and strongest controls, we find that we say or do something we didn’t want, or act in a manner in which we did not want to. It is as if we are pulled or provoked into a particular direction by something within us (which we attribute to external behavior by someone else!). Why does this happen and what is the remedy?

It seems it is almost an automatic reaction that we don’t have to even bring into action. A switch is pressed and the fan turns on. This is due to past habits or samskaras. Or also called conditioning due to our own choices, tendencies, memories. Then we get angry at ourselves at not being able to do anything about it. That is harsh because it is not us but the conditioned mind in action.

The moment we realise that it is not us doing it but our mind which does it and gives us the experience is when we realise that we have power. We are the experiencer and can choose our experience. The way to do it is by detaching from our own conditioned mind by slowing it down. By making the automatic switch defective. And the technique to do it is by diverting the mind back to the Lord (soul within) using our discriminating intellect whenever an entanglement potential appears in front of us. The mind driven by senses, memories and ego loves such situations but by our discrimination guided by the soul within we have to resist it.

This takes practice. There are many tools to remind us of it and we can use whichever suits us. But by working on building a sense of detachment by renouncing selfish desire in action, we can realise that the mind loses its power.