Conscious and unconscious

The human mind is divided into two parts: the conscious and the unconscious. These are integral parts of every individual mind, whether male or female.

The conscious mind deals with everything that is within the realm of our awareness, whereas the unconscious mind deals with all those thoughts that the individual is unaware of but which influence his behaviour.

Our body is a highly complex organism. There are numerous functions going on at all times in our bodies like seeing, hearing, digestion, respiration and different kinds of movements. Almost all these functions are governed by the unconscious mind. Little effort is required on the part of our consciousness for the smooth functioning of these bodily requirements.

The conscious mind has unlimited capacity for thinking and analysing facts. But if everything is placed in charge of the unconscious mind, according to the divine plan of creation, what is the role of the conscious mind? It is to seek out the truth. The Creator has made the conscious mind free to involve itself solely in the great quest for truth. To search for truth is our greatest task.

What is truth? Truth is, in other words, the reality of life. We must try to know the secret of life, its purpose and goal, to know what is right and wrong, what are the minus and plus points, what is negative and positive thinking, what is good for the individual and for society.

The answers to these questions are not written on any mountainside. It is up to us to discover the truth. Knowledge of truth is so important that the Creator has consigned our bodily affairs to the unconscious mind.

People frequently live in a state of frustration. And great men are no exception. They live frustrated lives and they die frustrated. Tension and stress are ubiquitous.

The reason lies in people’s failure to find the truth. Everyone is a seeker by birth, but everyone lives his life without knowing what the real purpose of life is. Due to this aimlessness, people are living in a state of confusion. They speak and write, but without clarity. They live lives fraught with contradictions. They yearn to find something but without knowing what that something is.

A tension-free mind is one that can function positively despite contradiction. People work, but without job satisfaction. People run after money, but without experiencing inner satisfaction. People have adopted the formula: Enjoy life! But they don’t know what life is and what its real enjoyment is. It is a paradoxical situation and everyone is living in this state of self-contradiction.

It is a self-created problem. When the Creator has given you a mind and made you free to use your mind, you should make use of this opportunity. You have to activate your thinking capacity. You have to discover the reality. You have to read what is hidden in nature in an unwritten form. That is the only way to extricate yourself from this psychological chaos.

The consciousness of truth is interwoven in your nature; it is very easy, therefore, to discover the truth. The only condition is to shun distraction, to follow the well-known principle: simple living, high thinking. If you want to save yourself from going astray, activate your thinking faculty. Think and you will surely reach the gates of truth.


Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Just Be Yourself..........

Be strong enough to face the world each day.

Be weak enough to know you cannot do everything.

Be generous to those who need your help.

Be frugal with what you need yourself.

Be wise enough to know that you do not know everything.

Be foolish enough to believe in miracles.

Be willing to share your joys.

Be willing to share the sorrows of others.

Be a leader when you see a path others have missed.

Be a follower when you are shrouded in the midst of uncertainty.

Be the first to congratulate an opponent who succeeds.

Be the last to criticize a colleague who fails.

Be sure where your next step will fall, so that you will not stumble.

Be sure of your final destination, in case you are going the wrong way.

Be loving to those who love you.

Be loving to those who do not love you, and they may change.
Above all, be yourself ..
Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Secrets Of Being Happy Read It Slowly and Under stand it it is going to change you.....

Whichever way you have ‘become’, you have only created and cultivated a small part of it consciously.

A large part of you is unconscious because most of what you perceive is not in your awareness. Sense perception is like that – everything that goes in through your sense organs gets established in your system to be remembered forever. This is karma. Every impression that the five sense organs take in is stored. This is not against you; this information is useful. If you clean up all this information, you will not know how to handle even the simplest aspects of life.

It is only because the information is coming in such torrents, it is so complex, and most of it goes into you without your consciousness so it has become a problem. How you became the way you are is just a tendency that you developed because of the information you gathered. This tendency is traditionally called vasana. It is like a smell. Whatever is there in maximum quantity is the kind of smell you experience. Because you produce this kind of smell, a certain type of life moves towards you, and you also tend to move in that direction.

Now, you use perfume to cover the smell. In the first meeting, people may get deceived. The moment they notice the stink, they are going to run away. Is that the way to live?

So it doesn’t matter what impressions you have gathered, what you make of it is in your hands. An unpleasant experience is carried by most like a badge, always talking about it. “This happened; somebody did this to me, that’s why i’m like this.” They try to cover all their unpleasantness with this one badge.

One basic symbolism in yoga and Indian spirituality has always been a lotus. This is essentially because a lotus grows best wherever there is dirt. Either you can resist the dirt; you can become the dirt, or transform it into a wonderful blossom. It’s your choice.

If unpleasant things have happened to you, it is all the more important that you turn wiser and more beautiful as quick as possible, because you know the pain of unpleasantness. If unpleasant things have happened, all you have to do is see how such things do not happen again to you or to those around you. Whatever you are right now is your own creation, perhaps an unconscious one. Unconscious processing of your impressions has landed you where you are now. If you consciously process the impressions, you could turn them into something else.

To drop your vasanas, and get released from these tendencies is an endless work because in the process you may end up creating more karma. So, instead of trying to erase the smell, you need to distance yourself from the source.

Whatever the nature of karma, the recording mechanisms are only two – your body and mind. If you create little space between you and your physical body and mental structure, then whatever the karma, or vasanas, they have no impact on you. Then, they just die.

The choice is yours – you could be a victim, a spectator, or the master of your life.



Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Scriptural psychotherapy and happiness

Explaining the last chapter of the Uddhav Gita, which is part of the Srimad Bhagavatam, Swami Visharadanand of Prashanti Kutiram, Bangalore, commented that Indian scriptures give deep insights into psychotherapy: “All unhappiness is born out of psychological condition of mind called vritis or modifications.”

Four such conditions of mind are: spardha or competition, asuya or jealousy, tiraskar or hatred and ahankar or ego. These four vritis destroy our happiness.

Normally, competition normally occurs among equals.
Jealousy is felt towards those who are thought to be better off than or `superior’ to us, and
hatred or contempt is directed towards those we think are `inferior’ to us.
Ego is in respect of self. Ego is a feeling that I am someone special.

What is wrong in competing; doesn’t it lead to progress? Swamiji replied: Competition brings about the attitude of ‘doing something only to win’ rather than ‘excelling to bring out your best potential’. When ‘winning’ and not ‘doing the best possible’ is the attitude, it may also lead to use of unfair means as also compromise on quality of work input.

Jealousy is a counterproductive attitude of mind because it prevents a person from seeing good qualities in another person. If someone is wise, a jealous person may think he is a hypocrite, and so not learn from the other’s virtues. Hatred and contempt are also negative emotions.

Ego makes you do things only to win approval of others. If such approval does not come once in a while then the mind is disturbed and that makes an egoistic person very unhappy. “When all others appreciated my work, why did that fellow not do so?”-- This is a typical reaction that prevents one from experiencing peace and happiness.

What, then, is the solution for removing such negative emotions from one’s mind?
One must feel samatvam or oneness to overcome competition, jealousy and hatred.
And one must understand the true nature of atma, that is, sat-chit-ananda, to overcome the ego.
The same atma is the indweller of the body of all other persons, whose outward forms may be different. If you understand the real nature of atma as the creator of this entire Universe, where is the need for you to feel superior or inferior to others and be egoistic? Also, where is the need to get approval of others in order to be happy?

It is not easy, however, for everyone to remain with this understanding of soul-consciousness versus body-consciousness. What then is the way out? The Uddhav Gita gives the road map to reach this stage. First of all, you have to keep doing your given duty to the best of your capacity without ulterior motive, ego or ‘doer-ship’. This is the path of Karma Yoga. This then will lead to purity of mind which is absolutely essential for enlightenment.

After achieving a near-pure mind you could get on to the path of devotion and trust in God, known as Bhakti Yoga. Soon after that you might spontaneously begin to feel the oneness of all beings and supreme love for all, which is the ultimate bliss that one could ever hope to achieve in this world. It is a state of long lasting bliss which can also be carried forward from this birth to the next birth also, as promised by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.

Taken from Speaking Tree
Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You