The mind, which drives a being, is a very complex organism. Acting upon inputs provided by two feeders, it sets the terms for all actions on our part, and then accordingly steers them through.
The prime-feeder is the storehouse of memory imprints carried over from the past. These impressions pertain to the learning and experiences had in the past, as also the residual implications in the cause-effect chain of all our past doings and un-doings. Guided by these in-store memories, mind involuntarily builds up individual-specific belief system – termed as samskara in common parlance — which defines the character of a being. And that accounts for all our habits, attitudes, and desire trends, which collectively define the way our thought process works.
Based on this premise, mind incessantly keeps breeding thoughts, and the stronger ones translate into action. The impressions of the fruits of action — good or bad — get relayed to the memory bank for add on.
The second feeder to mind is the manasa – the particular faculty of mind, which gathers outer field data with the help of sensory organs of perception. More often than not, mind, prompted by continued input from the above two sources, becomes volatile. For, while attending to incessant flow of unbridled varying thoughts, losing the grip on objectivity. In fact, mind begins behaving like a monkey, mindlessly jumping from one branch of the tree to the other. That makes a person vulnerable to slippages with obvious consequences.
Unless one is focussed on priority preferences, one’s expectations from life may remain a distant dream. Evidently, that calls for a control of the ‘monkey-trends’ of mind. It is with this end in view that the mind is armed with buddhi – the faculty of discriminate intelligence to screen off the undesirables.
The irony, however, is that our samskara often traps ahamkar into its fold and then prompts it to follow its preconditioned perceptions. Ahamkara, let me explain, is that empowerment tool of the mind, which brings into play the ‘I’ consciousness. It cannot, by itself, discriminate whether the task is well reasoned or ill-conceived. Remember, any empowerment tool acts as a double edged weapon – it could be either used or misused. It is the prerogative of buddhi to judge whether an act is worth pursuing or not.
Often preconditioning by our samskara, prompts ahamkara to passionately pursue its fanciful ideas, not allowing buddhi to apply proper forethought. Once ahamkara is limited by samskara, it ignorantly also tempts you to take seeming realities at their face value and unquestionably believe them as true. It then prompts manasa to react and respond impulsively on instinctive judgment, exactly the way animals do. What then would be the difference between animals and human beings when the latter ignore their discriminative facultyIJ
It, therefore, becomes important to remain alert to keep the discriminative faculty in active mode. The way forward is to identify, acknowledge, and then address our inherent habitual tendencies carrying negative connotation under whose influences ahamkar gets misdirected. Astrology here can serve as a very effective diagnostic tool to get to know our inherent habitual frailties. This task, too, is again the prerogative of none other than ahamkara.
let us see how a young man’s samskara stands in way of his potential, otherwise immense, from coming into full play. Mark the two luminaries, the sun and moon, both under the adverse impact of limiting saturn, and emotionally surcharged venus. This needs to be read together with intelligence signifying mercury overshadowed by restive rahu. That points to his conditioned mindset carrying a strong sense of fear and insecurity, which makes him buckle under pressure even in ordinary circumstances. He is too sensitive and gets stuck to anything unpalatable by his perception. What incapacitates him further is his restless mind, which does not allow him to apply proper forethought, and with obvious consequences.
The writer is an astrologer, vastu consultant and spiritual counsellor. Write to him at G-5, Basement, Jungpura Extension, New Delhi 14 Tel: 9818037273/ 24310031 Email: pioneerqueries@bharatastro.com Website: www.bharatastro.com