Part - 8 Thoughts, Impression and Behavior
Why we do that we do?
The journey started with
this question and we found out two types of human behaviors one is slow,
conscious and tiring and other one was fast, automatic and unconscious.
Human judgement making system is very much efficient and at macro
level it knows very well which system to use in which condition. We
introduced two characters mind and brain that are responsible for our decision
making. Though brain and mind both are same, you can compare it with flower and
essence. These two words derived from Sanskrit word “Mann” and “Budhi” and
after lot of discussion many people said that correct words should be intellect
and mind but in place of intellect I used brain reason for this that it is
simple to understand but nomenclature is not an issue you can give any name as
Nobel laureate Denial Kanheman just called it system 1 and system 2 the idea
was to present dual type of thing process in our head. Any processor is
incomplete without memory system and from these two systems (mind and brain) we
identified two type of memories brain’s memory (Physical memory) and mind’s
memory (subconscious memory) and with the course of time our research area
tended towards mind since it is responsible for almost our 95 -99% decisions.
We found out that Mind is not a gross thing, visible and tangible. Its
existence is nowhere seen. Its magnitude cannot be measured. It does not
require a space in which to exist. To understand functioning of mind we
shifted our focus to the subconscious memory (subconscious mind) of mind and
found out the various secrets of subconscious mind and found out the most
elementary character of subconscious memory and we called it – Thought. We
believed that we have reached at the climax of our study and we shifted our
focus on “Thought”. We studied five types of thoughts and reached on the
conclusion that what we are is what we are currently thinking right now but our
theory stuck on the following questions:
Why we can.t
control thoughts? Why there is always bombardment of thoughts? Why we can’t
delete the thought? If mind is a lake and thoughts are merely turbulence in
water like bubbles coming from the bottom of lack on the surface then from
where these bubbles are coming? And most important how does a contagious
thought spread like virus? To answer these questions now time has come to
introduce last and final character of this story and that is – Impression
Thoughts and Impressions
Answer of the entire
above raised questions is Impression. Its impressions stored in subconscious
mind that are responsible for human behavior. The best example by which
relation between thought and impression can be described is example of fruit
and seed. Thought is fruit while impression is seed. Thought causes impressions
and impression causes thoughts. Whenever mind receives a thought from the
senses the knowledge of that thought is stored as “Impression” in subconscious
mind. Suppose you taste an orange then knowledge of orange will be stored in
subconscious mind as impression and when next time when you will see the orange
the impression stored in your subconscious mind will create a thought and send
it to your mind for processing mind will again process that thought and will
store one more impression and this vicious cycle will keep going on.
Even by meditation if
you are able to remove all the thoughts you cannot remove impressions from your
subconscious mind. Removal of impressions called liberation (Moksha). There are
some very advanced Samadhi techniques by which impressions can be removed. All
Impressions co-exist in the mind. The thought slowly subside and leave traces
in the mind. These traces are the impression. From these Impressions springs
memory. By steadily practising meditation, we can vividly notice the
marvels that take place in the mental factory of an individual, how the
thoughts arises in the mind-lake, how it subsides and how an Impression is
formed.
Human Behavior
Why some people are so
optimistic, some are pessimist, some always cheerful, some always calm?
Impressions stored in our subconscious mind are the reason for what we are. We
keep experiencing from our childhood and every experience creates an impression
in the subconscious memory. It is said that every day we receive thousands of
thoughts and every thought generates one impression so you can assume how much
impressions we already have stored in our mind memory till now and Hindu
philosophy believes that impression never dies and after death they are carried
away with soul so when we born we are born with impressions of previous life
too so if we add this too then you can assume billions of impressions are
already stored in our memory. Suppose you face a setback in an event then which
type of thoughts will be sent by impression to your mind?
Will thought of “I am
not sad will keep attempting” will come in your mind or “I am loser” will come
in your mind. It’s all depends upon two factors - which type of impressions are
larger in numbers and which impression was created latest. Suppose there are
more negative impressions then positive impression in your subconscious mind
then negative thought will come on surface suppose there are more negative
impressions but recently you are reading a motivational book than first thought
will come on surface will be positive thought but with the time negative
thoughts in larger number will also come on the surface and supersede the positive
thoughts. Ancient Indian used to know very well that impressions are the
building block of human behavior so it was the most important duty of parents
to store the positive impressions in the mind of kids. From the age of 2- 15
the impression building process goes on. Impressions are called Samskara in
Sanskrit language and it’s very popular practice in India till now. Parents
give positive Samskara to their children. After parents we receive the
impressions from our teachers and friends. So the parenting, friend circle,
teachers are major contributor of human behavior and there is one more factor
that can’t be explained is impressions of past lives.
Can we predict the human
behavior?
Human behavior is sum of
billions of impressions stored in subconscious mind. Similar impressions form
the group and become the habit. Powerful impressions that generate lot of
emotions can be compared with juicy fruit that becomes your beliefs. Beliefs are
the operating system of human behavior, though human behavior is very complex
but it’s predictable since it’s automatic and uncontrollable in most of the
situations. There are some global impressions that we all have stored in our
mind like body language, gestures and postures. If we see smiling face we feel
happy if we see angry faces we feel intimidated. Apart from these global
beliefs there are some personal beliefs that vary from individual to
individual. By observing and talking with someone you can easily understand
their individual beliefs and by understanding their beliefs you can easily
predict their behavior since you know the process. Behavior can be predicted by
body language, gestures and postures and by observation and talks. As you will
send an external thought to that person his impression will get in actions and
impression related to that thought immediately send the thought and ask that
person to behave in particular manner.
Can we change the human
behavior?
As it was explained in
the above paragraphs that impressions are the DNA of human behavior and we
cannot delete the impression once it stored in subconscious mind but merely
latent impressions doesn’t affect your behavior. It is active impression that
keep sending thoughts to mind for processing and that induce action are the
responsible for human behavior. So the most basic method is to incept new
positive impressions in mind and keep nurturing them. Suppose your personality
is introvert type and you want to convert into extrovert type so that means you
already have stored billions of impression in your subconscious mind that
induce you to sit at home, to watch TV, to stay alone and you had associated an
amount of pleasure with these activities. Mind only perform that activities where
it feel pleasure and avoid those activities where it feels pain so for changing
your personality you have to incept new impressions in mind that are related to
extrovert activities and you have to attach lot of pleasure with it and
gradually you have to attaché pain with your introvert thoughts. It’s a long
process and takes time and you need to nurture your extrovert thoughts but it’s
not so easy because your introvert thoughts will not stay quiet and they won’t
allow you to incept new opposite impressions that’s why despites of starting
something new with lot of enthusiasm we deviate from our goals with the time
and we fail. Here comes the second processor in picture: Brain (Intellect). As
explained in previous articles, Mind can be controlled by Brain. If you can
control your mind you can always incept new impressions, develop new habit and
can change your behavior. It was the reason that our ancestor gave so much
importance to controlling the mind. There are lot of techniques to control the
mind, direct methods and indirect methods that I will explain in coming
articles.
There is one more method
for changing the behavior where you do not need to incept and nurture the new
impression where you just need to find out a strong impression that is already
stored in mind and need to attaché new impression with that already stored
powerful impression. Now the conflict will be between two already stored
powerful impressions and by using power of that old powerful impression your
new impression can thrive in the mind. Suppose you are lazy and want to be
dynamic so if you store new “be dynamic” impressions in mind your already
stored “be lazy” impressions won’t allow to thrive new thoughts so you have to
find already stored powerful impressions related to “identity”, your “family“
or your “career”. Now you associate your new impression “be dynamic” with any
of your old powerful impression like if you don’t become dynamic your career
will be destroyed and now you start to incept your new “be dynamic” thoughts. Now
it won’t be too easy for the “be lazy” impressions to stop the new thoughts and
by this whole process will go on.
I just explained the
basic dynamics of human behavior. It’s difficult to elaborate each and
everything in one article so basic idea was to explain the elementary system of
human behavior and human judgement making. If you are following this topic from
the first article you must have realized that how each and every entity is
connected to each other. Two system theory is the most fundamental theory of
human behavior and by this behavior of individual, a group, a society even the
behavior of country can be explained. This is last article in the theoretical
part of mind and brain theory series and now in the coming articles we will
explore the applied part of mind and brain theory and try to solve the some
complex problems.
