Often, a question comes to the mind of all the people who wish to move along the path of spirituality. How can this limited mind understand reality? Since we are living in this world, and while living, we have to make decisions almost every moment with the intellect, how can this limited intellect make decisions that help it connect to the divine? It seems that there is a fundamental assumption behind these questions that intellect will always be under the control of Our worldly desires. Thus, it appears to me that the real question is whether our intellect can be free of worldly desires and work under the guidance of the divine.
Probably, we need to examine the fundamental causes of control of worldly desires over intellect. Though different philosophers and mystics have examined this question quite deeply, I feel that the examination by Gautam Buddha is quite close to the understanding of the human brain by the neurologists of the day.
The neurology of the day says that basically, the brain has three parts. The first one is the reptilian brain, which reacts without any thought. For example, if we put our hand on fire, the body will immediately force the hand to move away from fire. The second part of the brain is the emotional brain, which operates on emotional memories. Basically, the emotional brain develops with the growth of communities, and its primary function is to ensure our survival. Since communities operate on the fundamental principles of cooperation, that is the reason why social validation plays such an important role. The emotional brain contains many fears which are fundamentally based on the fear of social disapproval. Similarly, emotions also contain many feel-good memories, which are also based on the pleasure of social approval. For example, we have a fear of not being able to conform to social or organizational standards. If we examine this fear, it is also fundamentally based on the fear of social disapproval. Similarly, we have many feel-good emotions such as likes on social media, appreciation made by society, fame, rewards, promotions, etc. All these feel-good factors are also fundamentally based on social approval. The third part of the brain is the rational brain or intellect, which is primarily assigned the duty of analysis. It has no mind of its own.
There is one more complexity to this simple structure of the brain. The emotional brain has two significant components. The first component is the conscious mind and the second one is the unconscious mind. The conscious mind comprises a very muscular portion of the overall emotional mind. The emotional mind keeps growing as we get experiences in life and keep forming different linkages. For example, a child who is not loved by his parents may develop a deep deprivation for social validation and may try to compensate the same by coming first in the class. Slowly and gradually, the desire to come first may spread to all aspects of life. In the course of time, the emotional brain may remain conscious of only the desire to come first and forget the fundamental linkage between such desire and the lack of love from the parents. Thus, there are many aspects of our emotional brain, which we are not conscious of.
This is where Buddha worked. He examined his own mind in the deepest of meditation and found that it is not possible for our intellect to examine the unconscious mind. He found that our emotional mind has a direct connection with our body. Every time we feel emotionally good, there is a pleasant sensation on the body and every time we feel emotionally bad, there is an unpleasant sensation on the body. Not only this, this memory of pleasant and pleasant sensations are stored in our body, and as and when there is a trigger, are emotional memories get activated and start sending the pleasant or unpleasant sensations to the body. Thus, the cycle keeps going on, we feel emotionally bad, which results in unpleasant sensations, these unpleasant sensations are stored in the body, we get triggered by the environment at any time in the future, these unpleasant sensations get reactivated, and we start feeling bad, we get more and pleasant sensations on the body, we feel worse, and the cycle goes on.
So we may be wondering what is the role of intellect in such a case. Unfortunately, Intellect is like the minister. It has to obey somebody who is sitting on the seat of the ruler. Since, it is the emotional brain, which is occupying the seat of the ruler, the intellect has no option other than the command of the emotional mind. The emotional brain decides what is to be done, and the intellect provides the logic for the same. That is the reason why depression, suicidal tendencies, stress, anxiety, etc do not distinguish between the
intelligent and stupid. In fact, if an intelligent person falls into the trap of these negative emotions, there are more chances that he would be stuck for a longer time because his intellect is able to provide better logic to continue the situation. Any external advice or consultancy may not help such intelligent people because their intellect is smart enough to find infinite logic to defend their negative emotions.
So, what is the solution provided by Buddha? Buddha examined himself and realized that there are two possibilities for guiding the intellect. It may either work under the guidance of the emotional mind, or it may work under the guidance of the divine or consciousness. However, since the emotional mind has very deep roots, deep into our unconscious mind, until and unless we handle the deepest layers of the emotional mind, the divine cannot take over.
Buddha suggested a practical way out based on his own experiences. We have at least one choice till the time the intellect starts working under the guidance of the divine. The choice is to be a witness. If we witness, we are not making the choices and therefore there is no question of the emotional mind, guiding choice.
While being a witness, if we observe the sensations on the body, without reaction, the vicious cycle of the emotions, gets broken. If we observe the sensations in different parts of the body, with equanimity, the strength of emotional memories in the unconscious mind gets reduced and its reactions are not as strong as and the next time the same incident takes place. This is because the body no longer gets the feed From the emotional mind. Since we are in a witness State, not making a decision, the emotional mind has no role to play. This helps the intellect to get rid of the slavery of the emotional mind, and it creates space for the intellect to connect to the divine. I have used the word divine to refer to the entire field of consciousness, which is full of all possibilities.
Thus, the only possibility for our lives to be guided by consciousness exists when the intellect is free of the clutches of the emotional mind. Often, we make a mistake by considering the emotional mind to be limited to the conscious part of it. That is a very limited port ion of the emotional mind. Unless we work on the unconscious portion of the emotional mind, it will keep maintaining its command over the intellect. Consciously, we may say to ourselves that Money has limited utility, yet unconsciously our decisions may still be guided by greed for Money. Similarly, unconsciously our decisions may be guided by some of our inferiority complexes, and the conscious mind may give them the name of the drive for excellence. Consciously, we may be moving towards Sadhana. However, in the background, the unconscious mind may keep taking different forms such as name, fame, desire for heaven, etc. That’s what happens when people continue their unconscious desire for networking, fame, power, and proving their intellectual superiority in the name of Sadhana. the unconscious mind is clever enough to camouflage its desires, and that is probably the reason why the demos have always been depicted as having powers to camouflage their form. Until the unconscious maintains its kingdom, it is almost impossible for the intellect to be guided by the consciousness or the divine consciousness.
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