Who you are? what you are?

 

Fig: 1

 What did you see in the above diagram? Many of them would answer ‘it’s a triangle…’ But is it so? It is just few dots drawn in such a way. But we don’t see it as dots but we perceive it as a triangle. Many a times what we perceive many not be necessarily true. Our thinking colours our reality. What seems as real sometimes deceives us. The same applies to our thinking also. Right from our childhood we develop so many thoughts and we contemplate on those thoughts. But have we ever thought that whether these thinking or the belief we hold are true? Many a times we question various things around us. We question the stars, we question our creator, and we question everything around us. We think of conquering the moon, conquering the Mars but we never question our thinking and never think of conquering our thoughts. We blindly believe it. Have you ever thought about your thoughts? What would happen when we start thinking about our thinking? The question can be very tricky. But the answer is very simple. We will come to know what is true.  We will come to know the eternal reality.

To change our thoughts and thinking patterns, we need to know how our thoughts and thinking are developed. Thoughts refer to ideas or arrangement of ideas that result from thinking. Thoughts are based on our schemas. Schemas are the basic building blocks- a way of organizing knowledge. It is like an index card in our brain telling the person how to react to the incoming stimuli. For example think of a pen. You know from your experience or you have seen others using a pen and you know how a pen looks like. But you know only about ball point pen. Suddenly you come across an ink pen. Now you are in disequilibrium. How you learn that it is also a variety of pen? Here come our schemas. Your parents teach you that it is also another variety of pen. You try to assimilate various information you get about pen. Suddenly you come across pencil. How do you differentiate between pen and pencil? You learn from your parents that pen is different from pencil. This process is called as accommodation. Schemas affect what we notice, how we interpret things and how we make decisions and act. They act like filters, accentuating and downplaying various elements. We try to sustain our schemas. We have various schemas. Social schemas, self schemas, event schemas, object schema etc. Based on these schemas we have frame concepts and develop thoughts. When we have clarity we will analyse these schemas and thoughts. We will contemplate on what has been said to us, but when we are under some kind of problem we have a tunnel vision. Our nature of thinking becomes very narrow which leads to many of the problems.

 

Fig: 2
Thought process

The above diagram is represented in form of a circle. It means that not necessarily our thoughts should create an emotional impact and result in behavior. It can in any way interact with one system or the other. So just today please think about this. Think how your thoughts, emotions and behavior interact with one another.

Table: 1

Thought Record

Situation	What was running in your mind? (Your Thoughts)	What was your bodily reaction?	How did you feel?	How did you react?

So now we understand that we create our world. We construct our reality. We frame a rational understanding of world and others, and at times an irrational belief about our own self and others. Let’s take an example:

                            

Fig: 3
Different Perspectives 

Though the situation is same in both the cases, the perception or the interpretation of the event varies from individual to individual. Though we know the reason is our  thoughts and how we see events, how is that some people think positively and have a good self esteem about themselves and yet another person always view himself and others in a negative sense. Where this difference comes from?..Think about it. We will discuss in the next post.