What Are You? Discovering Your True Self

What are you ? discovering your true self.

We frequently identify ourselves through our inclinations, labeling them as our interests or personality traits. But what are these inclinations really—whether it's "I like hosting gatherings at home, watching horror movies, or engaging in sports," or "I favor relaxing and doing nothing" to name a few.

What exactly are these inclinations?

Repeated thoughts change, and strengthen the neural pathways, and science now has a name for it: Neuroplasticity. There is Hebb's theory from 1949 that states, "Nerve cells that fire together, wire together." What these theories agree to is that, when an action is carried out, a group of neurons fire simultaneously, and with repetition of the action, the neural pathways become stronger.

In his book, Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda referred to these as "grooves" in the brain, representing the physical expression of an individual's "worldly tendencies" and "undesirable habit-mechanisms."

Long before all these evolved, Indian scriptures have already talked about the same concept and they refer to them as "Saṃskāras" and "Vāsanās"—which are the subtle, subconscious mental tendencies, habitual patterns, and dormant desires. These Vāsanās influence your actions, and those actions, in turn, reinforce your Vāsanās, forming a cyclical loop. In Buddhism they call it Saṅkhāras. Although I haven't read other scriptures, I am quite certain there might be similar references to human tendencies and conditioning which forms strong belief and identification patterns.

In essence, these concepts suggest that your identity, personality, learned behaviors, beliefs, perceptions, and unconscious emotional reactions are ingrained in the brain physically as well as energetically.

These ingrained patterns can have both positive and negative effects. Some tendencies might be shaped by genetics, family conditioning, and early childhood experiences, and they may not reflect your true intentions. People often resist change because altering existing patterns is uncomfortable; sticking to familiar habits is comforting and reinforces one's sense of identity, leading to the assertion, "This is what makes me, me!" However, these patterns can sometimes result in staying with an undesired boss or yielding to demands in relationships, making it hard to leave and potentially contributing to chronic stress, anxiety, depression, unhealthy life choices, and undesirable situations.

How can we release these patterns?

1. Deliberately select new thoughts, actions, and behaviors with care when the old ones are no longer beneficial. This process is demanding and takes time and effort, but it ultimately forms new neural pathways. Scientific evidence backs this, showing that your brain slowly builds networks that strengthen your personality, beliefs, and automatic responses. You can also use Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to reshape mindsets and unconscious habitual patterns.

   
   

2. Long-term meditators who engage in deep meditation and attain higher consciousness states can start to break these established patterns, although this method isn't specifically targeted. A more effective strategy involves combining conscious decision-making with meditative practices.

   
   

3. In my experience, being around an enlightened individual makes this process easy. The neural pathways are reset due to the law of resonance. When the person you are with doesn't have those neural pathway patterns, you can't hold on to yours as well. For a more authoritative source, this phenomenon is also discussed in "Autobiography of a Yogi."

~ Shiva Tejo