Freedom
from Conditioning
Conditioning
controls our lives. How we feel emotionally, what we think, how
we think, our beliefs about the world - they’re all primarily
a result of conditioning. We receive impressions from childhood
and throughout our life. Those impressions condition our hearts
and minds. Some ancient teachings refer to these impressions as
samskaras.
Zen
Buddhists aspire to a state of “no mind.” What does
that mean? Ancient Sanskrit texts define the mind as something
created from conditioning. Impressions etched upon the awareness
determine how we interface with the world. It colors everything
including our mood and even how you are receiving this article
right now. We often feel passionately about it, considering our
conditioning to be our truth. Our entire lives become invested
in our conditioning.
When
we try to gain more knowledge about something, where do we go?
Where do we look? What do we find an affinity with? What determines
our aversions? When we look for a teacher, what is our criterion?
Isn’t it based upon our conditioning? Those we view as qualified
teachers are individuals more indoctrinated and vested in our
conditionings than we are. You then might think you need to find
a teacher with a different conditioning. Consider the possibility
that a true teacher frees you from conditionings in general. This
enables you to rest more fully into your innate inner wisdom.
All
too often, when an old conditioning stops working for us, we simply
look for another. This leads to a seemingly endless cycle of one
indoctrination followed by the next. At first, abandoning conditioning
might seem scary. You might ask, “Am I supposed to become
an anarchist? Am I supposed to reject everything I know and love?”
Absolutely not. As you move beyond conditioning, your life on
the surface may change very little. You still have your affinities
and aversions. But there’s a deep level of your being that
ceases to be overshadowed by conditioning. Conditioning becomes
like a thin veil that does not overshadow your inner wisdom.
Education
in the world today is certainly an out/in process. For the most
part, it is the imposition of new ideas and new behavioral modalities.
Act this way, think this way, and then you’re a more accomplished
person. Of course, these things have value. It’s a great
thing to study physics, music, or whatever your field of endeavor
is. But there’s a different sort of education, a different
way of attaining knowledge that is greater. You attain it when
you wake up to the place within you that already knows.
When
we typically think of personal growth or spiritual development,
it tends to be somewhat of an out/in proposition. Some believe
that if they can just restructure the surface of their life, it
means they’re growing. Different groups have different ideas
about what that’s supposed to look like. One group may think
it means being unattached to material things. For another, it’s
all about staying centered in their heart cave and speaking from
a place of serenity.
You
would do well to ask yourself what parameters you think you must
conform to in order to be spiritual. What do you think you will
be like on the surface? Will you be more loving? Will you practice
the Ten Commandments? Maybe you will have a different, wise phrase
from the Tao Te Ching to use in each situation.
But
these things do not make a person truly wise. Real wisdom is not
the regurgitation of wise phrases. It is not identifiable as a
type of behavior. The place of wisdom is alive, well, and eternally
accessible within you. Yet, it is unattainable through thoughts
and emotions. As you soften your relationship with your conditioning,
you awaken to that place of wisdom within.
The
Golden Frog and The Surya Program aren’t really about
the conveyance of notions, intellectual theories, or behaviors.
As a matter of fact, if you reduce it to a set of ideas, you’ve
compromised it. Facts, theories, and concepts are artfully used
to work with your awareness and physiology in order to liberate
you. In so doing, you more fully rest into the grandeur of your
being. You start to wake up to the part of you that is the source
of your true greatness.
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