Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
Aug 02, 2013
Dr. Rajesh Bhola is President
of Spastic Society of Gurgaon and is working for the cause of children
with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple
disabilities for more than 20 years
India
Aug 02, 2013
In 1902, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov accidentally discovered ‘conditioning’ while observing the behaviour of his dogs.
He noticed that while his dogs would salivate whenever he entered the
room with their food, they later did so even when he entered
empty-handed. He further discovered that any object or event that the
dogs associated with food would trigger the same response. A neutral
stimulus would become a conditioned stimulus. He devoted the rest of his
career to studying this type of conditioned response.
Strangely, human beings also love leading their lives in a highly conditioned manner.
Our conditioned behaviours map fairly well how we construe the major
dimensions of human functioning: physiological, cognitive, emotional,
behavioural, relation to self and others, and spiritual. We love
sleeping in the same couch or bed everyday – we are uncomfortable
anywhere outside of that. We love wearing only certain types of dress.
The liquor-happy rush for the evening dose, taken mostly with
stereotyped snacks and the same mix of water and/or soda. Generally
we love remaining in our comfortable, familiar box, and are shy to try
something new. The moment we are out-of-the-box we feel as uncomfortable
as a fish out of water.
Can we think and live differently? Freedom from conditioning can transform our lives. However, if some new enlightenment is to occur, an interruption in the ‘normal’ flow of conditioned behaviour is necessary. There has to be a gap for light to enter. We
can get freedom from conditioning when we deeply see the state of our
lives and decide to do something about it. This means seeing how we have
been acting in a programmed way and then ensuring that this
conditioning does not continue to dominate us. This does not mean that
the old conditioning disappears from a person’s mind immediately. An enlightened person is not free from conditioning; rather, he/she is alert to conditioning.
A criminal may continue to feel an impulse to harm others, and an
addict may continue to feel the urge for the drug – for many months and
years. Of critical importance is not that we get an impulse, but
rather whether to act on it or not. This is the time, the gap, when and
where new light can shine.
The
harm that we do flows from our conditioning; most of it we have done
before we realize what is happening. We get carried away. Going along in
our ‘not-seeing’ way, acting like robots, we think we have to do the
things we do - even when we know perfectly well that they are harmful. Out
of our fears and cravings we build an identity for ourselves. This
identity becomes coercive. Many begin to feel trapped in their lives.
The enlightened person and the destructive person are not fundamentally
different in nature. It is just that the destructive persons have not
realised that it is possible to break the cycle of conditioning. If they
are able to come out of their conditioned reflexes they can be
enlightened too.
This
is where meditation can help. While meditation is often simplistically
represented as a “relaxation” technique, it is better construed as a
means for promoting self-awareness and general self-regulation, for
decreasing emotional reactivity and for enhancing insight and the
integration of perceptual, cognitive and behavioral aspects of human
functioning. These enable us to get freedom from conditioned behaviour
by gaining wisdom. The concept of wisdom is increasingly being
examined as an emergent process that occurs when the immediate,
generally self-protective reactions of the conditioned mind are
suspended, and the integration of more complex processing is allowed.
This type of wisdom can
therefore occur within any domain of functioning, and need not entail
any intellectual processing (as is often implied in Western concepts of
wisdom). Often, while meditating, we experience a sense of ‘knowing’
that we have identified a true or wise perspective of a problem. Mindful
meditation is a therapeutic tool and a path to wisdom for every domain
of human functioning. If meditation is conceived as a way to
disengage ourselves from the wheel of conditioning, from the bounds of
endless conditioning - while allowing a full engagement with life ‘in
the moment’ - then we should use it to examine how we react to different
stimuli.
Our fundamental nature, as persons, is to be wise and compassionate,
but years of social and self-conditioning have obscured those
qualities. We have learned to act and think in self-centred ways for so
long that selfishness now seems natural. Like
Pavlov’s dogs, modern man too salivates – but on greed, delusion and
endless craving. Because our habits of self-centredness are so deep and
ingrained, their disciplining needs to be gradual and gentle. Let us set
ourselves free from the conditioned behaviour of being self-centric,
and return to our true selves - of being kind and compassionate to all
fellow travellers.υ
No comments:
Post a Comment