The mind and the mindfulness
Let us start with the basic understanding of how our mind works. To understand this in a better way, you will have to do simple exercises. Please watch the video and do these exercises.
Did you notice how quickly your mind was able to move from one place to another and from one feeling to another? The human mind is so powerful that by being in one place it can travel to any corner of the world or it can actually live or re-live any moment of your life.
In my last article, I had asked you to put your conscious mind on everything you do for one day. You will get to know now why I had asked you to do that. Before doing this, let us try to understand our conscious and unconscious minds.
Conscious Mind: This is the logical part of the mind which typically contains 6–8% only. We use this to make the most critical decisions of our life, learning new skills, be focused, etc. It takes much of your effort and you have full control over this by being aware. Every moment is inevitable and one can live that present moment fully by using the conscious mind only.
Unconscious Mind: Mostly all the processes that go on into this mind are automatic. They do not take much of your effort and it is beyond your awareness. So you do not know that is happening and you do not have much control over it. Because of this nature of our unconscious mind, we can not know what is influencing our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, judgments, etc. which has a huge effect on our behaviour.
Anything we see our unconscious mind quickly tries to perceive based on our past experiences or the way we have made it functions. For example, do you see anything wrong with these two images of Obama?
Looks both identical to you? Right? Until we rotate the screen and find out the truth. Do not you end up fighting with a person who is actually seeing the same image from the opposite side of the screen? This is just because we see and perceive things the way we train our minds.
So our logical part of the brain learns things and slowly once we believe that we have learned then it passes that learning to the subconscious and the rest of the work done by the subconscious mind. Remember the very first experience of learning cycling or swimming? Did it not take a lot of effort while learning but once we learned it fully, it did not take much effort as it happens subconsciously. Seems familiar and okay to everyone, right? Then what is the problem?
No, there is no problem at all!
The problem starts only when the unconscious takes full control of your life. Then even the conscious part of your mind becomes a slave of the Unconscious Mind and in short, your life becomes a slave to your own mind.
How did it happen?
Let us get back to the start point where I had asked you the do little exercises. Let us try to do the same once again:
The only difference this time was that I have asked you to be aware of the situation. This time your mind was aware that someone else is asking you to do that. This seems small but has a huge impact on our mind and so on our body. Previously when you were doing the exercises you were reliving those moments but this time you just remembered those memories but not re-live them. So thinking about the past or imagining the future is not a problem but start living in the past and future is the biggest one.
Ever thought about how this unconscious mind develops?
Since our childhood, whatever places we have seen, things we have learned, emotions we have experienced, people we have met was first taken care of by our conscious mind and once we are sure and made our belief about those things, places, people, or anything then it became a permanent place in our unconscious mind. So in short our unconscious mind is a world of beliefs that is made based on past experiences or plans which is on the basis of future imaginations. The moment we believe in something we pass it on to our unconscious mind and later if something goes wrong or against our belief or not as per the plan then we feel upset and miserable and the amygdala tries to hold on to it. Amygdala is a part of our brain that makes us feel fear. Amygdala gone means humans can become fearless. But in some sense fear is good, it keeps us alive. So fear is related to the physical body. But we are living in a world where we are the safest species on earth so the sense of fear for the physical body is not there anymore which makes the amygdala try to protect our social, spiritual beliefs and other identities that we have created for ourselves.
Human is the only species in the universe who can live and die for their belief. For example, you might have seen a lot of people saying that if needed I can die for my country just because they have created their identity with the nation. Some can die for their religion as they have created their identity with the religion.
When we make strong beliefs about something then the possibility of seeing the reality becomes almost zero. We always try to protect that belief for our whole life rather than finding the truth about it or try to experience the same.
Your body and mind are just the tools for your survival but unconsciously we end up becoming slaves to our mind and body. For instance, you go to the market, and suddenly your nose senses the smell of your favorite food. Despite you came just eating your lunch but still you feel tempted to eat this as mind gives you the instruction that this is your favorite food, no matter how full your stomach is you end up eating it. It is not about the right or wrong choice, it is about whether this decision was conscious or compulsive?
Mind is like a knife and we have been asked to sharpen it since our childhood but no one taught us how to use it in a proper manner. We all are using this knife to stab ourselves each day (by taking unconscious decisions) unaware that it must be in our control. You are the one who should give instructions to your mind, not vice versa. If you do not learn how to use this amazing tool then it will use you for your whole life.
The simple answer to this is to awaken consciousness.
As I said, the two very true natures of the mind are the conscious and the unconscious. We do not have much control over the unconscious mind however by some practices we can activate our conscious mindfully. These practices called meditation techniques.
No one in the world can give you the right definition of Meditation because there is no such. It is something that can be experienced but not explained or proved. Everyone experiences them differently. You can try practicing the one you feel is the easiest for you.
Myths about meditation:
1.) Meditation is keeping the mind quiet.
It is one of the myths that people try hard to keep their mind quiet and so they end up quitting practice as keeping the mind quiet is no way other than death.
2.) The correct way of meditation.
There is no correct form or way to do meditation so do not look for one.
3.) Meditation will solve all of my problems.
Once again here if you make this belief that meditation is going to solve all your problems then sooner or later you will end up cursing meditation too.
4.) Success is the stillness of mind.
Some of us might quit the practice thinking I am not getting that stillness of my mind. Meditation is not about making your mind still.
Some of you might be thinking that I do not have time right now to do all this then let me give you some facts which have already been proven by modern science.
We have chronological and biological age. Chronological age advances once every 12 months. Biological age speeds up or slows down based on how much stress you have in the body. Meditation actually helps you in reversing the biological aging process, published in the International Journal of Neuroscience showing that if you had a matching chronological and biological age on your 30th Birthday and you start meditating daily, by the time you will be 35, you will have skin elasticity, sexual responsiveness, auditory threshold, vision, and the memory of a 23-year-old version of yourself.
So if you think that you do not have time then Meditation practices are actually creating some extra time for you. Maybe now you can use that time?
I found Meditation a completely vast topic and so I will try to share my experience and give more insights on this in another article.
Everything I have written in this article is based on either my own experience or the facts which already been proven by modern science or neuroscientists. Still, my humble request to all of you not to believe what I have said but start having your own experience.
I am leaving you with the hope that you will soon start heading towards the best version of yourself 😊
