This is part IV of mind series. Mind can be classified broadly under two categories. They are conscious mind and sub-conscious mind. Conscious mind receives information through the sensory organs. This means conscious mind is the knower and perceiver. It recognizes sensations and thoughts. Conscious mind can receive inputs only through sensory organs. It comes to a conclusion based upon the inputs and uses its own reasoning and intelligence. Let us take an example. You went for an evening musical concert. You enjoyed the music. How do you know that you enjoyed the music? Because you were physically present in the concert and your sensory organs, in this case ears passed on the musical notes to the mind. Mind by using its reasoning and intelligence decides that the concert was good. That is how you came to know that you enjoyed the music. None of your organs can decide the quality of the music. Only mind can decide that. You go to concert of the same performer after a month. Your mind already knows that this artist’s music will be good. So you are going to the concert with a predetermined notion. In other words, you mind has already decided that the concert is going to be good, as it has already experienced his music. In reality the concert may not be that good like the last time. In other words, you mind already has impressions of this artist’s music.

There are two aspects to be noticed here. First, your mind thinks positively, therefore the concert will be good. Secondly, your mind thinks positively based on its impressions. Unless you have an experience you cannot have impressions. In this case your mind has prior experience about the concert; therefore it has the impressions of the artist’s performance. In future also, whenever you attend this artist’s performance, your mind will always predetermine the quality of the performance. When an act is repeatedly done, it becomes a habit. Habit is result of subconscious mind. As we have seen earlier, for subconscious mind there are no inputs but only impressions. When impressions are deeply embedded in your subconscious mind, it supersedes the conscious mind, simply on the basis of its seniority and experience. When your subconscious mind begins to act, either good or bad, it is difficult for you to control it. When we are not able to control our conscious mind, how we are going to control our subconscious mind? It is extremely difficult as subconscious mind leads to addiction, the unconquerable enemy. It is difficult to find a habitual smoker stopping the habit of smoking. Therefore, subconscious mind should have the impressions of good ideas and habits. Only subconscious mind decides your destiny. Subconscious mind is the product of conscious mind. Without conscious mind, subconscious mind cannot exist. Conscious mind arrives at a conclusion based on reasoning and intelligence, but subconscious mind does not have reasoning and intelligence. Therefore subconscious mind does not know what is good and what is bad. It can only act and acts decisively. The inputs to the conscious mind are given by the sensory organs and inputs to the subconscious mind are given by the conscious mind. We have already discussed how conscious mind receives inputs based on our association. But certain activities are controlled only by subconscious mind, without the influence of the conscious mind. For example beating of heart is controlled directly by your subconscious mind. Even if your conscious mind wants to stop the heart beat, it cannot do so. Conscious mind cannot boss over the subconscious mind, as conscious mind is junior and less experienced than the subconscious mind. We will continue our discussions on the mind in the next posting.