The issue of conditioning of mind has been occupying my thoughts for some years now. Conditioning of mind is like programing of mind. The mind is trained to think within the boundaries created. The mind is also trained to think on certain lines and not deviate from it. Its like someone has programed the mind and decided 'what' and 'how' to think for us. This is referred to as conditioning of mind. I first came across this topic during a discussion in a JV workshop in Mussoorie in 2004. Since then I've been thinking on this issue. I also read a book named 'Freedom from the known' by Jedu Krishnamurthy, where he talks at length about de-conditioning of mind.
I wonder how deep this conditioning goes and when did it start. Did it start when I went to school first? The earliest conditioning I can think of is to regard first rank or good marks as something great. Or did the conditioning start when I started seeing television. The conditioning of regarding certain set of clothes as cool and others as not so cool seemed to have taken place through television for me. Or did the conditioning started even earlier?
I've been observing kids very carefully on this issue. In my family I have 3 nieces and 2 nephews. The eldest of them now being 10 years and the youngest 11 months old. I haven't seen the youngest one much, but I have seen the other kids in the grow very closely. And often I have observed rather innocent but serious conditioning taking place on part of the parents. One very common thing I have seen in my family is the way we talk. We all talk in a fairly normal way (the accent, the voice, the pitch) when talking among ourselves. But when we need to speak with any of the kids, our style of talking completely changes. To sound polite to them everything changes about the way we speak (the pitch, the accent, the choice of words). As a result we may sound quite polite to the kids, but we sure do not sound normal to them. And I believe they are smart enough to notice this change (however small they maybe). I now think of the damage this does to them. We are showing a part of hypocrisies in us, where we behave differently with different people.
I can think of another incident which clearly showed me how a child gets conditioned. In December I was visiting my cousins in Mumbai. One of my nephew belongs there and he is about 3 years old now. I was talking about the above example with my brother and it made him think. During this trip we visited a family friend in Nerul. The sweet aunty gave Rehaan (my nephew) a piece of paper and pen to play with. Rehaan used that to draw some figure which was some figure in line with evolution of snakes. My bhabhi would very politely ask what he has drawn, and "snakes" came the answer. To this my bhabhi replied "ooooh snake! oh im scared Rehaaan" (notice the extra a in rehaan). And with this she would also enact out the emotion of fear on her face. Rehaan would then runaway into a different room and come back again within a minute. He would come back with another similar figure and my bhabhi would ask the same question. He gave the same answer again, "snakes" and that followed exactly the same response from my Bhabhi. This happened 4 times in 5 minutes. The 5th time Rehaan came with his drawing, he related the words "snakes" with "fear" and the expression my Bhabhi would make. I'm assuming here that at that time he got conditioned. He got conditioned into thinking that snakes are something to be feared of. And as he will grow his 'natural' reaction on seeing snakes would be that of fear.
I can relate this example to my life. I can see how my 'natural' reactions were not natural enough but conditioned. I'm not saying the parents did this with some bad purpose in mind. This act has been done with pure innocence on their part I'm sure.
I was reading a blog recently where this girl talks about how every child hates karela. How the 'natural' reaction of every child on seeing a karela would be 'chee, chee', while this girl loved karelas as a kid. I think a similar thing happens with karela too. When a child tastes karela (or anything which is sour), the mother (or any adult) makes this hate expression on the face. And I think this act done number of times makes it 'natural' for a kid to dislike sour things. And similarly to like sweet things. I cannot imagine that our tongue is designed to me less favorable for karela and more favorable for an ice-cream. I think the issue of tasty food is more of conditioning of mind and less of the structure of our tongue.
As we grow older, this conditioning becomes stronger and wider. This conditioning then plays a major part in our decisions in every aspect of life, shopping, hobbies, choosing a partner, choosing a job etc.
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5 comments:
good observations... i haven't given much thought to conditioning of mind yet but i do support the points u raised...
I quite liked your 'snake' example.
Well conditioning is not necessarily a bad thing.. Its how one learns to survive. Animals do this all the time. The cubs learn how to hunt from the Lioness. She teaches them to pick the weakest deer, to hide in the grass and to surprise the pray.
you see this is where we fundamentally go wrong. we observe animals/plants/physical bodies and then conclude something about human beings. this often leads to wrong conclusions and therefore all the mess.for example somebody observed physical bodies and concluded every action has equal and opposite reaction. and then we implied this rule on other three orders blindly (plants,animals and humans). does this law hold true for only physical bodies or even others? if it does in humans then it is perfectly justifiable on my part to slap you back if u hit me.
secondly i did not talk in terms of right or wrong. my only question is do we want to be conditioned or not?? how would we define freedom (swatantrata)?
third, what the lioness does is train the cubs to hunt. there is a difference between training and knowledge. we need to see that difference clearly.
Hello Harsh,
I admire this blog for what I think it is. A collections of the expressions of a man who tries to see things the way they are, honestly reaching within himself and asking questions, arriving to conclusions in the process. I hope these observations conform to your ideas behind it.
Things might get misplaced if we tried to find answers to all our questions on our own. In my opinion you've gone astray at some points. I'd like to point them out.
1. "I wonder how deep this conditioning goes and when did it start. Did it start when I went to school first?" Well, the conditioning started much before any of us were born, I'm afraid. Many of our instincts are the 'animal' instincts developed through organic evolution of Homo Sapiens. Really can't do much about many of our traits. The traits developed because of interaction with humans can of course be set right, if need be. I've done some reading over this. One starting point could be http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/biology.html
2. I found the last but one paragraph misplaced to a large extent. We are hard-coded to like some foods more than others, and the 'code' works by guiding not just the tongue, but a number of other sensory organs. This code was written, you guessed it right, along the way on the path of evolution. It's not the my or my parents' fault that I don't like Karela. I suggest you read this article. http://www.physorg.com/news88964387.html
The post suggests that you're against programming of the mind. I think there are no blacks-and-whites on this. Children need training (programming, if you please) to some extent. On the other hand, each one needs his space and his freedom to find himself, and self-verification of one's beliefs in essential.
I've read some of your posts, and it was an interesting expereince, although I frequently disagreed with you. Do keep posting.
Thank you.
Aniket.
@aniket
i took some time to respond to your comment. i had to go through the links u mentioned first. both the links seemed extremely scientific in nature and therefore they have completely disregarded the fact that there exists something like consciousness. when you ignore the element of consciousness then one has to explain all these things in terms of biological evolution of neural sparks or hormones.
the trouble with a normal reader like u and me is that whatever we read in the name of science we just assume it to be true. the person has tried to equate the habits of rat with man. a rat is able to take better care of its health than a human, why? we eat tasty things like chocolates being fully aware of its bad effect on health, a rat would never eat any such thing if he falls sick in 24hrs (as per ur link).
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