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Conditioned and Unconditioned Mind: How We Humans Walk Through the World

By On · Add Comment · In Life, Mind, Spirit

Conditioned MindOne of the most often repeated truths, yet also perhaps one of the most difficult to comprehend, is that you are the creator of your life. You are your own creation. Who hasn’t heard this and nodded in agreement? Almost everybody understands it on a basic level, although there is a depth to this reality which I would love to share with you here.

Most people can connect with the fact that they are products of their choices, decisions, and actions. Not hard to understand either is how our beliefs, drives and intentions also play an intricate role; yet it does raise an age-old philosophical question of whether we truly have free will (make all our own decisions) or simply have lives that are determined (a product of circumstance). If you are unaware of this fascinating conundrum, please do yourself a favor and read a little bit about this paradox – it is well worth the time. In any case, most people have a surface understanding that we do indeed create our own lives.

However, what few tend to ponder is how we do this. How exactly do we create our lives? Well, it all emanates forth from the conditioned mind. I am not speaking in terms of a conditioned behavior here, like Pavlov’s dog, but instead the state of creating conditions – a particular state that something is perceived to be in. A conditioned mind, then, is one which differentiates, reduces, and groups together elements of a thing into similarities and differences in order to understand that thing. This is a material necessity of the human mind. Put more simply: for humans to make sense of the external world, we must be able to discern this from that, here from there, and now from then. It is how we humans walk through the world.

Conditioned MindAdditionally, we have likes and dislikes which are part of our dispositions. I like ice cream, rock music, and warm weather. I dislike seafood, the smell of body odor, and cruelty to people or animals. That’s me. You might agree on all or some of these things or disagree on all or some. But I have mine, and you have yours.

You also have drives, needs, and values, however, which underlie most of your actions – in other words, why you do what you do. If you value family, for instance, you will most certainly be drawn in awareness to family-supportive activities and events. If you value a strong social life, then you will be driven to go out, meet people, make friends, and party.

Then there are needs you have like the need to feel loved and appreciated, or to be recognized for who you are, or for what you provide to others (to name just a few). And these needs, along with your values, lead to desires, and ultimately to behaviors, including your perceptual emotions. Needs, values, desires, likes, and dislikes all work together to cause you to then pass judgement onto the outer world. You see things as good, bad, right, wrong, deserved, unjust, nice, mean, attractive, or ugly, all as interpretations from your conditioned mind. True self-realization comes from becoming aware of your mind’s conditioning (in its many varieties).

Your conditioned mind, then – through your likes and dislikes, needs and values – creates your perception; that is, how you tend to see things. Your conditioned mind, equally, influences your decisions and behaviors. It’s your conditioned mind that creates your history and the narrative story you repeatedly tell yourself and others. And depending on whether you feel mostly supported or mostly opposed will determine the theme of that narrative. We all know people who skew in one direction or the other, and some of us skew in many different directions depending on the number of sub-narratives we have. In other words, we all have the potential to become a hero or victim in different areas of our lives. And it all comes down to the conditioned mind.

Conditioned MindI hope you can see now more clearly how you are, indeed, your own creation, at least with respect to the usual ways in which we create our lives and the material world around us. But things cannot exist independently. They must always be in conjunction with their antipode. Even beingness must be opposed by nothingness, and neither can be without the other. Thus, for there to exist a conditioned mind, there must also exist an unconditioned mind.

The unconditioned mind is the transcendent state – the one in which no distinction is made between antipodes or opposites. Neither this nor that, here nor there, or now and then exist in the unconditioned mind. All appear as one to the eternal present mind. The Buddha called it enlightenment (Nirvana), the Vedanta, nirguna. It is also the cause of the rising of the Christ, and the source of all mystical experiences, so some might call it God. The unconditioned mind is also known as superconsciousness, and it is available to all human beings on the planet.

If the conditioned mind is creation, then unconditioned mind is evolution, growth and transcendence. Conditioned mind brings along with creation suffering, as part of our judgment is also to discern our dislikes, defeats, and disasters. Being denied our desires can create pain so intense as to render us into helplessness and despair. And then, of course, exist our fears. Those things we wish to never encounter – hurts, rejections, traumas, and predators – which we spend great energy to avoid throughout our lifetime, but nevertheless find us anyway. These, too, are the product of conditioned mind. Unconditioned mind, however, sees no difference between heaven or hell, pain or pleasure, justice or injustice, or any other polarity. Unconditioned mind accepts all that is exactly as it is and is thankful for it. All is one to the unconditioned mind.

Conditioned MindSo, yes, you are your own creation. And in the material world, you need the conditioned mind, in a sense to do that. But you can easily get mired in the swamp of your own creation, as not all creations become the oasis we envision. However, it is through unconscious mind that we create the Shangri-la from whatever conditioned form our life has taken. Only through the unconditioned mind is it possible to find heaven regardless of the material circumstances. Conditioned mind does the creating, and unconditioned mind takes care the appreciating. When we love our lives in all their circumstances, exactly as they are, then we can be certain that we are operating in unconditional mind.

Attuning to unconditioned mind takes training and practice. I have been teaching mindfulness, meditation, and mental balance for nearly a decade. I have had the honor of sharing wisdom with thousands of novice and seasoned meditation practitioners. You too can learn to cultivate the art (and science) of attuning to your unconditioned mind. Please contact me for one-on-one or group consultations. You are your own creation. And you are your own evolution and growth inducer. This is how we walk through the world.

Today’s Youth More Inclined to Mental Stress

By On · Add Comment · In Mind


Are life’s modern-day challenges harder to tackle than those of yesteryear? That’s the question mental health experts are asking, as a recent study shows that five times more high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues than youth of the same age decades ago.

The study did a comparative analysis of a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938 and found that more students today struggle with the stresses of school and life in general. Researchers at five universities analyzed the responses of 77,576 high school and college students who, from 1938 through 2007, took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Overall, an average of five times as many students in 2007 surpassed thresholds in one or more mental health categories, compared with those who did so in 1938. Some of the increases were even higher in some categories:

  • “hypomania,” a measure of anxiety and unrealistic optimism (from 5 percent of students in 1938 to 31 percent in 2007)
  • depression (from 1 percent to 6 percent)
  • and “psychopathic deviation,” which is loosely related to psychopathic behavior and is defined as having trouble with authority and feeling as though the rules don’t apply to you (from 5 percent in 1938 to 24 percent in 2007).

Lead author of the study, Jean Twenge, who wrote a book on the influence of pop culture on the mental health of young people titled, “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before,” believes that the growing interest in being rich amongst the nation’s youth has a big part to play in the study’s findings.

Experts say that such high expectations only lead to disappointments. They also note that some well-meaning but overprotective parents have left their children with few real-world coping skills, like handling emotional challenges or even balancing their checkbooks. Says Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Motefiore Medical Center in New York City, “If you don’t have these skills, then it’s very normal to become anxious.”

Students themselves put the blame on everything from pressure to succeed–self-imposed and otherwise–to keeping up with technology as the causes of increased mental stress. Sarah Ann Slater, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Miami stated, “The unrealistic feelings that are ingrained in us from a young age–that we need to have massive amounts of money to be considered a success–not only lead us to a higher likelihood of feeling inadequate, anxious or depressed, but also make us think that the only value in getting an education is to make a lot of money.”

A New Jersey mother whose daughter is being treated for depression said, “I don’t remember it being this hard. We all wanted to be popular, but there wasn’t this emphasis on being perfect and being super skinny.”

The study’s findings, however, do not prove any correlation between pop culture pressures and mental stress. And it is not without its critics, either: Richard Shadick, a psychologist who directs the counseling center at Pace University in New York states that the sample data weren’t necessarily representative of all college students (Many who answered the MMPI questionnaire were students in introductory psychology courses at four-year institutions). Also, the increased numbers may simply reflect a heightened awareness of mental health services and treatments–like pharmaceuticals–available.

I believe that today’s youth are facing challenges that earlier generations didn’t have to contend with. That’s certainly no surprise to me. Young people of the 1950s were dealing with very different–and I’m certain perceptively greater–challenges than the youth of 1776. Things change, the world changes, and it happens faster every generation. It seems only natural, then, that the faster things evolve, the harder it will be for everyone to deal with these rapid changes. I’m not trying to minimize things here–I just think that it sounds fairly logical that new generations will have their hands full with the world of their era. Whether or not these challenges lead to increased mental health stresses over previous generations is debatable, especially since the mental health field has evolved along with everything else.

What it really says to me is two things. One, mental health is as important as it always will be, since our minds are integral to every aspect of our being. If we don’t have our perceptions in balance, havoc will wreak on our health and our lives. Therefore, obtaining mental balance is critical. If you or your child are having trouble finding this balance, contact me, I can help.

And two, it really brings up the point of having realistic goals and expectations. College does not ensure financial success. Nor does what you see on T.V. constitute reality (despite the moniker as such). If you can’t explain to your kids that success–financial or otherwise–requires a marketable product or service and super-hard work, not a four day work week, not six weeks vacation, not a French-style social system (go ahead, ask your French friends their opportunity for financial freedom and wealth), then, really, it’s your burden to bear when they can’t hack the pressure.

 

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