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Observing the Influences and Suggestions That Shape Our Responses in Life · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  If one practices a simple exercise, even just for a short
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  time, one becomes aware of the numerous forces that are acting
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  upon us, shaping our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and
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  reactions. The practice is to sit quietly
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  and observe the various thoughts and feelings that arise while
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  one is sitting there, and then trace back where that thought or
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  feeling came from and how it arose within one's awareness.
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  The first thing one generally notices is that we become
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  acutely aware of small discomforts of the body signals
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  that cause us to move slightly to try to find a comfortable
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  position. Then we begin to acutely tune to
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  the senses such that we hear sounds, feel the breeze,
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  etcetera. If we work to bring the mind
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  stuff to a state of stillness, like a lake without a ripple, we
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  may then be able to observe how various thoughts, feelings, et
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  cetera enter and create ripples at this moment.
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  If we trace them back, we can observe their source.
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  Sometimes it is a force that is active in our environment.
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  At other times it may be a rising of a memory, and it's
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  still others. It may be the body or the vital
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  being asking for attention in some way.
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  With the advent and pervasiveness of electronic
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  media, social media, radio, TV, loud speakers, we will often
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  find that impressions we have received consciously or
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  subliminally rise up in times of quiet reflection.
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  Possibly it will be a mental activity related to some
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  unresolved issue or problem we are trying to solve.
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  One way or the other, we can begin to see how impressions
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  work. Forces are constantly at work to
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  try to influence us, to direct our thoughts, to raise up
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  emotions, to inflamed our vital nature, to motivate our physical
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  being into action. Some of these are consciously
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  directed by those seeking for power and control.
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  Others are available to us to support our growth and
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  development and protect from hostile influences.
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  In many instances, our choices remain subconscious.
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  With this simple exercise, we can begin to recognize and then
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  consciously choose which influences to permit in our
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  lives. Once we see how this works, we
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  will understand that we are constantly inundated with
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  suggestions and that we tend to act almost automatically under
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  the influence of these waves of energy and their direction and
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  impulsion. So long as we are unconscious of
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  these influences, there is very little we can do to choose and
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  direct our responses. Once we become aware, we can
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  choose to limit our direct exposure, to resist those
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  influences that we find to be out of harmony with our basic
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  goals and aspirations, and to support those in our lives that
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  are there to help us grow and thrive.
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  We can tune our being to respond to specific frequencies and
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  energies and to deny others, Shriorabindo notes quote.
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  There are powers of the mind and the life force which have not
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  been included in Nature's present systematization of mind
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  and life in matter, but our potential and can be brought to
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  bear upon material things and happenings, or even brought in
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  and added to the present systematization so as to enlarge
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  the control of mind over our own life and body, or to act on the
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  minds, lives, bodies of others, or on the movements of cosmic
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  forces. The modern admission of
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  hypnotism is an example of such a discovery and systematized
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  application, though still narrow and limited, limited by its
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  method and formula of occult powers which otherwise touch us
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  only by a casual or a hidden action whose process is unknown
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  to us or imperfectly caught by a few.
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  For we are all the time undergoing a battery of
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  suggestions, thought suggestions, impulse
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  suggestions, will suggestions, emotional and sensational
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  suggestions, thought waves, life waves that come on us or into us
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  from others or from the universal energy, but act and
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  produce their effects without our knowledge.
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  A systematized endeavour to know these movements and their law
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  and possibilities, to master and use the power or nature force
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  behind them, or to protect ourselves from them, would fall
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  within one province of occultism, but it would only be
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  a small part even of that province, for wide and multiple
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  are the possible fields, uses, processes of this vast range of
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  little explored knowledge. End Quote Reference Sri Oro
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  Bindu and the Mother Powers within Chapter 19, Occult Powers
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  of the Subliminal, pages 149 to 150.