The Walk of Spirituality - Part 1

The Walk of Spirituality

Since our early childhood some day or the other we think about the nature of our self. We also think about what is our relationship with this world/universe. I hope this has come to every mind and have tried to explore this with our limited knowledge at that point of time and eventually when we did not proceed anywhere, we tried to get this answered with our parents and elders who had better knowledge than us. But this turns out to be a futile exercise as most of them don’t give the right answers or try to avoid it. Because of this we get stuck. One more reason as to why we get stuck is that, as we grow older material happiness and problems starts take precedence over these questions and we tend to put this on the side lines and concentrate the problems before us (Though here we have to understand that most of the material problems are self-inflicted and can be ignored but the mind does not allow this).

Let us try to understand the problems associated with our life and slowly progress towards what would be the solutions.

When a baby is born its mind is free of impressions like a blank state, so in order to live, the survival mode of the organism kicks in and starts learning from the surrounding. It slowly starts accumulation information’s that are useful for its survival. So what happens here is that each and every activity that is performed is recorded in the mind in the form of memory and used whenever necessary. So suppose a child see’s a chocolate initially it will be skeptical whether to touch it, eat it etc. But once it eats it, it enjoys the taste of the chocolate and this get embedded as a memory and since it enjoyed the taste of the chocolate the impression in the mind prompts it to eat more or it, this is nothing but impressions which forms into future tendencies. So it is here that trap of life starts. The child proceeds to acquire innumerable impressions like this on daily basis due to which certain impressions are created and these impressions leads to certain tendencies which ultimately results in action and reaction (causation and effect).

The law of causation and effect is one of the most complex activities that take place in the human mind.  Because of this when an action is performed there would be an effect in proportion of that cause. The law functions with the impressions and tendencies in the mind and performs actions. Diving further let us understand how this works with the same example of the chocolate and the kid.

The first time a kid sees the chocolate the awareness within the person prompts the person that there is something before you. Now mind jumps in and tries to see what it is (by reviewing old memory) but when it is unable to decide it takes the help of the intellect. Intellect here tries to analyze what is the thing that is before it. It makes the mind to ask around to know what it is and once it is satisfied it makes a decision, mind now works with the ego and consumes the chocolate.

Since the chocolate is consumed for the first time the taste of the food leaves impressions of its delicious taste in the mind in the form of memory and since the mind has enjoyed the food, mind prompts the ego for more. This is where the initial seed of problems starts, as desire is now created and when left unchecked it rears its ugly head in various ways.

Let us understand how this works further, the enjoying mind which consumed the chocolate now has a tendency to eat more of it and has led to the desire of consuming this chocolate more and more. Usually at this point intellect comes into the picture and puts a stop on the urges of the kid says it’s not good to eat too much, but if the mind is filled with many such impressions and urges, intellects influence becomes weak. So in this example the child now wants chocolate, mind starts disturbing the intellect to come up with a solution to for procuring more chocolates. Now the intellects first things about what are the available options with it. So with the help of intellect the child asks the parents to buy more of eat for its consumption. Suppose the parents do not buy the chocolate saying this is enough for the day and no more will be given. This event will have varied effect on the mind of the child. If the desire for the chocolate is less, then the child will subside and keep quiet and go about with its other activities.

On the other hand when the kid’s desire has taken over the mind (or mind is filled with full of desire of the chocolate) the kid gets agitated (mind of the kind). The kid’s mind now direct the intellect to procure the chocolate in any way possible. So now the kid will starts crying and throwing tantrums against the parents. Even if this does not work the kid will try to steal the chocolate leading to disastrous actions and reactions. If the child gets the chocolate after an unruly behavior, the impression that being unruly will fetch results will get embedded in the mind and leads to a tendency of being unruly next time when it wants something that the parents or others oppose. Further if the kid steals the chocolate and eats it. Then an impression that stealing will fulfill the desire (minds restlessness is subsided). Finally what will happen is that these impressions and tendencies percolate in to something very big, making the same kid in the future to do unnecessary and immoral things for its end.

This is just one small example considering on small aspect, but when we consider our daily life activities there are innumerable number of such impressions and tendencies that get embedded in our mind and mix and match these impressions and tendencies starts ruling our life than it should actually be led. 

So we can see that innumerable impressions and tendencies which work within the mind make it corrupted and confused. Because of these impurities the quality of life that is led is also not good and we become slaves of our thoughts/emotions/ tendencies and not the other way around.