Sputnik (seen by the archangel Michael and his little brother MP – created by a Belgian artist)
Conditioning is looking for the aeroplane in the sky when you hear its sound.
A long time ago someone close to you pointed to the aeroplane and told you to watch it.
Since that day you always look for it. You might have trained your sense of locating what you hear.
Right here or right now, nobody benefits from this action or conditioning.
Neither is there a need to unlearn this. Neither do you find the planes particularly beautiful (although they might be)
But you might realize, if you’d wanted to unlearn, how difficult it would be.
Most conditioning is just like that. It is an invisible mosquito-net hanging over your mind, filtering out one thing and emphasizing another.
As a psychologist who tends toward Buddhist thought, you can only imagine how much I liked this post
I’m grateful for your encouraging comment, although I must say that the adjective in front of the word thought, and for that matter any adjective, is a conditioning in itself.
HA! True. That’s why I don’t ‘subscribe’ to any paradigm. I just pick and choose, depending. Peace.
As in, wisdom lies everywhere, if we remain open to it.
Good to hear. Love and Peace to you.
“Most conditioning is just like that. It is an invisible mosquito-net hanging over your mind, filtering out one thing and emphasizing another.” A pretty good conclusion.
Hence the spiritual need to subjugate the “mind”.
Study animals in nature and you will see that instinct makes their eyes follow their ears and vice versa.
So, what is this thing called the mind? All sorts of pundits talk about it, write about it, discuss it, use it, treat it etc. but none can tell you what it is!!!! . . . . . . usually they point to the brain!
However, I once asked a friend of mine, not one prone to metaphysical thinking, on the spur of the moment, “What is the mind?” and was very pleasantly surprised to hear him give me a concise and accurate answer.
Always great to read your comments.
What is mind … not completely clear to me, since I disallow metaphysics either .. (1)sensation and body control / (2)emotional mechanisms / (3)mental activity (memory/logic/thought/opinion) / (4)and where does that intuition come from?
For the moment I see mind as mental activity, for the lack of better words. (1)+(2)+(3)=brain.
(4) is like an antenna in the fog – perhaps Fog.
I never thought of the unlearning part of it.
Conditioning is so much a part of our lives.
Yet, it is what I am doing now to relearn a different way since my stroke.
Scott
Unlearning often means more freedom and more truth. A lot of conditioning becomes useless over the years.
I found that out following my stroke and am still discovering the uselessness of a lot I learned.