Part - 7
I ended my previous
article “Secrets of subconscious Mind – I” on the secret that mentions that
there are two sources of thoughts: one is external world and other is internal
world or subconscious mind from where mind receives the thought for processing.
I wanted to write second part of subconscious mind on Human behaviour but later
realized that we can’t understand the Human behaviour unless we understand the
most basic unit of human behaviour that is called – Thought. So let’s discuss
“Thought”
"When one thinks,
then he understands; without having thought, one does not know; it is only
after having thought that one understands."
What is thought?
To understand that
what is thought we need to talk about how we think. Our senses receive the
information from the external world and send to mind. Mind process the
information and store them into memory. Thoughts can’t be called the electro
chemical signals sent by senses to mind since senses are involved only in
external thoughts but what about internal thoughts. Each and every time
something is going on in our mind, the mental images that we keep seeing all
the time. In the previous article it was explained that mind process the
thoughts and store them into subconscious mind and subconscious mind is
actually memory of mind where thoughts are stored and subconscious mind keep
sending different thoughts to mind to process again so we can say that thought
is the response of memory. There will be no thought if there is no memory.
Mind is the
consciousness. Mind is the instrument by which soul materialize the material
world. Its due to mind that different person perceives same thing differently.
Mind is nature of consciousness and fundamentally it is immaterial but affected
by material. It is product of both consciousness and matter. Thought is the
result when consciousness is affected by material. Many authors mentioned that
thought is a vibration or electric signal but thought can never be vibration
since vibration can take place only in vehicle and since mind is not gross
entity so thoughts can’t be vibration. Thought is the current state of mind or
simply I can say you are what you are thinking right now. You are thinking you
are happy then you are happy if you are thinking you are scared you are scared
and its keep changing like a TV screen where pictures are keep changing now so
I can say thoughts are modifications of mind.
Mind doesn't remain in same state keep modifying these modifications
are thoughts. So we got two definitions of “thoughts” first one is
“thought is response of memory” and second one is “thought is the modification
of mind” but if we observe minutely we will find that there are no two
definitions. There is only one definition, both definitions have similar
meaning since memory keep responding to mind in form of auto suggestions and
mind keep modifying. It’s an automatic process weather we want or not that
means you can’t stop thoughts. Thoughts will keep coming into mind but
it doesn't mean that we can’t stop random thoughts coming in the
mind. Meditation is technique to control this process that will be dealt
in separate section.
External and internal
thoughts
Imagine a lighted
electric bulb suspended in a tank full of completely clear and transparent
water. If the water is churned violently by some mechanical contrivance it will
make all kinds of patterns in three dimensions round the bulb, these patterns
being illuminated by the light from the bulb and changing from moment to
moment. But what about the bulb itself? It will disappear from view, all the
light emanating from it being assimilated with or lost in the surrounding
water. Imagine that water is your mind, patterns are mental images, turbulence
are thoughts and the bulb is your soul. This is the best example to explain the
mind is philosophical terms. Our mind is like water you can compare with a
lake. When we throw a stone is water, ripple occurs. Imagine the stones are
external thoughts. Stones go in the bed of river and permanently stay there.
Bed of lake is your subconscious mind where thoughts are stored permanently as
impression. Baubles keep coming from the bed of lake to the surface and create
ripples; you can imagine it with internal thoughts. When there is no external
and internal disturbance water gets still you can compare it with calm and
stable mind.
Type of thoughts
Every day we receive
thousands of thoughts and depending on the nature of thought we can broadly
classify all these thoughts in five categories. These five categories are:
right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory and each of
these thoughts can further be classified in three categories: pleasurable,
painful and neutral. Let’s talk one by one:
1.
Right Knowledge or Fact: It comprises all those images which are formed
by some kind of direct contact through the sense organs with the outer world of
objects. It may be by direct observation or inference or by testimony all type
of thoughts will come in this category. Suppose you see a car coming towards
you its direct observation or you are sitting in your room and you hear the
sound of car coming this is inference or your servant comes to you and tell you
about car it is testimony
2.
Wrong Knowledge:
It is also based on some kind of contact with external object but the mental
image doesn't correspond with the object. It includes delusion, wrong
inference and wrong testimony.
3.
Imagination or fancy: An
image conjured up by word without any substance behind it is imagination. This
type of thought is different than the first two thought since it is subjective
in nature and there in no direct contact with object while above first two
categories’ of thoughts are objective. Here again it is important to note that
if mental image is related to previous experience then it will be memory and it
won’t come in this category. Imagine a horse that has head of human. This
mental image will come in this category or you are reading a book or you
thought something new comes in this category.
4.
Sleep or dream: The
modification of mind which is based on the absence of any content in it is
sleep. It is important to understand that this state is different from Samadhi
(trance). The difference lies in the fact that in the state of sleep the mental
activity does not stop at all; only the brain is disconnected from the mind and
so does not record the activities which are going on in the mind. When the
person wakes up and the contact is established again, the brain again becomes
the seat of mental activity as before. You can compare the sleep with refresh
button of your computer. We receives thousands of thoughts every day at the
time of sleep thoughts are sorted and stored due to that we see weird things in
sleep. It doesn't have any significance meaning
5.
Memory: Memory
is not allowing an object which has been experienced to escape. Memory is here
defined as the retention of past experiences in the mind. But it is to be noted
that these experiences are retained in the mind as mere impressions (Samskara)
and as long as they are present in their potential form, as mere impressions,
they cannot be considered as thought. (Difference between thought and
impression will be explained in next article). It is only when the potential
impressions are converted into their active state in the form of mental images
that they can properly be considered as a thought. Memory is one of the most
important source of thoughts and responsible for our behaviour.
Whenever mind store the
thought in memory, mind associate the feeling with thought. The feeling may be
related to pleasure or pain or neutral. Its completely depend on mind and
previous memory that which type of feeling mind attaches with the thoughts. How
to change the certain feeling with the particular thought is subject of mind
programming and a separate section will deal about it. Feeling can be
called the unit of thought. Which thought is powerful and which thought is weak
can be compared by the amount of feelings attached with thought. Thought is the
most basic unit of human behaviour. Number of similar thoughts and intensity of
thought decides that which thought will prevail and will induce the action.
Similar set of thoughts and powerful thoughts gathers and form belief. Belief
is the operating system of human behaviour.
