The subconscious is something lurking just below awareness,
· In a human being,
· In a community and
· in the collective awareness of a nation.
The collective consciousness of a nation is comprised of several sets of beliefs, biases, and prejudices. That makes it a rather malleable set, constantly shifting and assuming new shapes. It is an active entity that charges ahead and charts the course of a nation. It is also a passive entity that follows the leaders in bits and parts, not as a whole. And that makes it highly moldable clay in the hands of master craftsmen.
Parallels between an individual and a nation
1. History
Individual
The subconscious mind is nothing but the “neural pathways” established in your brain due to your past beliefs and conditioning. During your unconscious existence, when you weren’t aware enough, you ended up imbibing a lot of limiting beliefs, negative conditioning and misguided perceptions about life that you took to be “true”. You believed in them enough to create vital neural pathways in your brain about them — causing these thought patterns to become “subconscious”.
Nation
We carry the painful memories of being a slave nation, of a partition that cut across a generation that had grown together, and of being subjected to third-party manipulation before the declaration of sovereignty. Though that generation is now largely extinct, it has left behind those fears in the collective psyche.
Unfortunately, the British model of ‘Divide and Rule’, is also seen as a successful model, and is emulated in the corporate and political arenas. ‘The Great Divide’ between the haves and have-nots still exists, as the amassing of wealth by a few by exploiting the masses continues. The rebels' instincts, too, refuse to die down, as they are denied a share in the nation's ownership. Action and Reaction, Heart and Brain, Conscious and Subconscious of the country, thus, continue to feed each other.
2. Mass Behavior
Individual
It has been studied biologically that the heart's signals are transmitted to the brain via the bloodstream, while the brain’s signals are transmitted to the entire body in terms of the vibration it produces (for example, a fearful thought creates a vibration of fear that is felt in the body and accessed by the heart). So, the heart feeds the brain, which feeds the heart and thus creates a cycle of amplification of any signal that got started.
Nation
The economy, inflation, lack of gainful employment, and social repression are all ‘signals of the heart’ that feed politics, uprisings, immigration, movements, and rebellion. The elite few who hold economic, social, or political power are capable of sending out these ‘signals’ and watching the ripples in the nation's pulse.
3. The Gap
Individual
Many people who realize certain truths and gain clarity feel frustrated that their brains cannot sync up with this understanding. The basic deal is that your conscious mind has gained the knowledge, but your subconscious mind is yet to get programmed in it — it still has vital neural pathways associated with the old beliefs, conditioning and thought patterns. The conscious mind can get it immediately, and you can feel a sense of relief and joy when getting clarity, but the very next day, you can come up against the subconscious mind, which starts churning out the old patterns.
Nation
This pause, the time gap between the realization and response, is dangerous. This is when vested interests strike the emptiness, exploit the awareness, and impose a new pattern. They confirm the newly found belief of deprivation and a hunger for progress but do not allow the masses to reach the underlying cause and integrate the conscious with the subconscious. Instead, an alternate consciousness is imposed, which diverts attention from their role in the drama. The masses are given an inane cause to uphold, a meaningless battle to fight, and a new passion to create a false sense of identity. It is at this point that the social reformers and all those who sought to bring a genuine awakening have failed. They could not move faster than the pause, which interrupts the integration of the conscious and subconscious. Hence, healthy behaviour patterns have been unable to take root.
4. The Role of Emotion
Individual
When a thought creates a feeling in the body, it’s called emotion. Emotion is a physical/bodily experience of thought. Intense/strong emotions are “unnecessary” and are the reason for 99% of physical suffering in the body; the remaining 1% may be physical suffering created through some physical damage/injury. You can “think” without making any significantly felt emotions. There is no such thing as “good emotions”. It is only a state of absence of resistance/emotion which feels good,
Nation
Once an emotion is generated, the individual or group of individuals goes all out to justify it, mostly by rationalizing (generating a suitable logic) and inviting others to confirm it. This process takes the form of the ‘pulse of the nation’, the public sentiment, or mass hysteria.
We have seen it in several movements, elections and slander campaigns in India. It works. Hence, it will continue to be employed as a tool. Reliance on ‘thought’ and ‘sensitivity’ rather than ‘emotion’, needs to be inculcated in functioning of the human mind.
SPEED MATTERS
“Speed is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man.”
says the Czech novelist Milan Kundera. The ‘thought consumer’ consumes and assimilates and gets a high from it without that pause to think and analyse. The brain does not know the difference between reality and illusion, and neural pathways are created. The higher the volume of this bombardment of views, the more accurate those views appear and become synonymous with an imposed reality.
THE FUTURE OF INDIA
Are we doomed to follow the same path and come back in a cyclic turn of events? Do we have to hit rock bottom before we start moving up again? Or is there a way to prevent the disaster?
Are we willing to ‘Pause and Think’ before we absorb whatever is thrown at us? If we manage to achieve that, the future will thank us for being an enlightened nation. Imagine the caricatures falling off, one by one, and an enlightened and responsible nation emerging. Then, work towards making it a reality.
(Source of Text in italics: calmdownmind.com)
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