How can the conscious and subconscious mind be disciplined and made an instrument of self-welfare and the welfare of all?

A seeker wrote to Brahm Bodhi with deep reverence, asking him to shed light on the conscious and subconscious mind while discussing how the mind is to be disciplined — so that, by understanding the distinction between them, human beings might cultivate the tendency to perform right actions.

“Hari Sharanam!” Brahm Bodhi replied. He observed that the seeker had raised a very important subject.

Before one learns how to discipline the mind, he said, it is useful to understand that only a very small part of everything happening within us remains in our direct conscious awareness at any given moment. Both modern psychology and the Indian spiritual tradition, each in its own language and framework, have sought to understand these deeper layers of the mind.

For simplicity, Brahm Bodhi explained, the functioning of the mind may be understood at three levels.

1. The conscious mind

What am I thinking at this moment? What decision am I making? To whom am I speaking? What do I consider right or wrong? All this, he said, belongs to the conscious level of the mind.

It is here that discrimination and conscious judgement can operate. One may be angry, yet still decide not to speak harshly. Thus the conscious mind can become the very doorway to transformation within us.

2. The subconscious, or preconscious, level

There are countless memories, learned habits and mental tendencies that are not before our conscious awareness at this moment, yet surface when required, or continue to influence our behaviour without any special conscious effort.

When one first learns to drive a car, Brahm Bodhi noted, every action has to be performed consciously. After some time, many of those actions begin to occur automatically. In the same way, behaviours repeatedly performed gradually become part of our nature and descend below the conscious mind to the subconscious level.

3. The unconscious mind

Sigmund Freud, he observed, particularly emphasised that there may be desires, fears, conflicts and repressed experiences within our minds of which we have no direct awareness, yet which nevertheless influence our behaviour and emotions.

This, Brahm Bodhi said, becomes extremely important in everyday life.

• Sometimes we know that becoming angry is not right, yet we become angry.
• We know that jealousy is undesirable, yet jealousy arises.
• We know that we should love a person, yet bitterness towards that person emerges from somewhere within.
• We know that a particular habit is harmful, yet we return to it again and again.

Why? Because our behaviour is not governed solely by the conscious thought present before us at a given moment. Our past experiences, habits, fears, attractions, mental associations and deeply embedded samskaras also shape the way we respond.

The Indian spiritual perspective

Indian thought, Brahm Bodhi continued, goes a step further. It speaks not only of mental impressions formed during this lifetime, but of the continuity of samskaras and karma across successive births.

The Gita tells us that when the jiva leaves one body and enters another, it carries the mind and senses with it. Within this spiritual framework, it therefore also carries what we describe as the impressions embedded in the subconscious and unconscious mind — what we understand as samskaras.

The next verse offers a beautiful analogy:

Just as the wind carries fragrance from its source, the jiva, in passing from one body to another, carries with it the subtle faculties associated with the mind and senses, along with its samskaras. This “fragrance,” in fact, serves as a metaphor for the accumulated samskaras of our many births.

In Vedantic terminology, this is understood in relation to the subtle body, the sukshma sharira. The mind, intellect, ego-sense and samskaras are not held to perish merely because the physical body has ceased to exist; they remain connected with the onward journey of the jiva.

How are these accumulated samskaras to be cleansed?

This, Brahm Bodhi said, brings us to the real question of sadhana: if samskaras have accumulated within us over many years — and, according to the Indian spiritual view, over many births — how are they to be cleansed?

It is here that Bhagavan Sri Krishna gives an extraordinarily practical answer:

The mind is undoubtedly restless and difficult to control, yet it can be disciplined through practice (abhyasa) and detachment (vairagya).

This principle, Brahm Bodhi explained, may also be understood in psychological terms.

Abhyasa means that, at the conscious level, we repeatedly choose the right thought, the right emotion and the right action.

Vairagya does not merely mean abandoning the world. When an old attraction, hatred, anger, ego, greed or habit pulls us in a particular direction, repeatedly refusing to follow it — and gradually becoming detached from it — is also vairagya.

The conscious mind as the laboratory of sadhana

Suppose, he said, that anger long hidden, suppressed or accumulated in the subconscious and unconscious mind rises to the surface. Earlier, whenever it arose, one reacted angrily ten times out of ten.

Now, through reading the Gita and other scriptures, participating in satsang, and repeatedly reflecting upon their teachings, one becomes consciously aware of what is happening within. Perhaps at first one is able to stop oneself on two occasions out of ten; then on five; eventually on eight.

Gradually the new response becomes a practice; repeated practice creates a samskara; and that samskara begins to become part of one’s nature.

It then sinks deeper within — moving beyond the subconscious and becoming established at the still deeper unconscious level of the mind. In this way, the mind is gradually cleansed.

How quickly this happens, Brahm Bodhi noted, depends upon how consciously and persistently we practise, using the conscious mind as the instrument of transformation.

Therefore sadhana does not merely mean feeding good thoughts to the conscious mind. Its purpose is to use conscious discrimination and sustained practice to progressively refine the samskaras deeply embedded within the subconscious and unconscious mind.

This is why continuous practices — meditation, japa, scriptural study, satsang, self-observation, selfless service, self-restraint and the remembrance of God — are so important. These are not merely religious acts whose effect lasts only for the duration of the practice; pursued continuously, they become instruments for transforming the very tendencies through which we think, feel and respond.

The social consequences of inner transformation

And this inner transformation, he said, also has profound social consequences.

• If greed fills the mind, nature will be exploited, animals will be exploited, human beings will be exploited.
• If ego dominates the mind, conflict will arise and others will be humiliated — and, by the principle of karma, we too will have to face the consequences of our actions, and may ourselves experience exploitation, humiliation and suffering.
• If there is a lack of restraint within, it will manifest outwardly as excessive consumption.

But if compassion, restraint and concern for the welfare of all become our samskaras, these qualities will naturally express themselves in our conduct toward family, society and nature.

Therefore, Brahm Bodhi said, before cleansing the Earth outside — and even while doing so — we must also cleanse the inner soil of the mind.

Preparing the field of the mind

This too may be compared to preparing, ploughing and cultivating the field of the mind for the cultivation of spirituality. Only when this field has been properly prepared can the beautiful crop of spirituality grow in it, ultimately bearing the fruits of the vision of God, God-realisation and moksha.

And the Gita, he reminded, gives us a profoundly effective method for this inner purification: abhyasa and vairagya.

• Again and again, choose what is good and auspicious.
• Again and again, turn away from what is harmful and unwholesome.
• If you fall, rise again.
• And gradually allow your conscious efforts to become samskaras embedded in the subconscious and unconscious mind.

Then sadhana does not merely change our thoughts; it begins to transform our very nature. And when our nature changes, our behaviour changes — we ourselves change.

When we change and our behaviour changes, our families and society begin to change, and lok-kalyan — the welfare of all — becomes possible. Ultimately, the purification of the human mind itself leads toward the cleanliness, welfare and upliftment of the Earth.