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The Unseen Societal Conditions That Frame Our Response to Events in Our Lives · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Each society, each religion, each culture in the world has
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  its own characteristic ideas and responses to the questions that
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  arise during an individual's life.
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  Many of these are programmed into the individual in
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  childhood, starting with prenatal conditioning based on
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  the energies of the mother. Once the child is born, he is
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  trained to accept the societal norms and modes of reaction to
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  various circumstances until these become an unspoken
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  assumption that forms the basis of the individual's life
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  responses and judgments. The human intellect actually
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  expects to have certain frameworks and predetermined
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  filters for the input it receives.
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  This makes the process of deciding things much faster than
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  if all the data and all the vibrational patterns had to be
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  analyzed each time in order to come to any conclusions.
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  Thus the system has evolved in such a way that it speeds the
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  ability of the individual to navigate his way through
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  society. It should be noted that due to
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  cultural differences, some of these life ways that are second
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  nature to an individual in his own culture are foreign to life
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  and other cultures and simply do not translate well across
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  cultural barriers. Language limitations also help
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  create the framework within which the mind functions.
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  Under normal circumstances. Between cultural and language
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  frameworks, most individuals live their lives truly
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  circumscribed within a specific set of boundaries, and these
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  boundaries are unseen and unrecognized for the most part.
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  There are, of course, downsides to this filtering and framing
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  process. While it may help to have
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  certain laws or axioms as a starting point in mathematics or
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  physics, it becomes less valuable in fields of human
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  interactions where these can turn into various forms of bias
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  or prejudice, or preconceived notions about people based on
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  their external appearance, dress, or the accent they use in
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  their expression of language. The famous story of My Fair Lady
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  revolved around an English professor who could judge the
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  class of any individual based on their accent, word usage, slang,
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  et cetera. He undertook to change the
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  perception of a specific individual through training her
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  to speak in a totally different mode.
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  Obviously preconceived notions, bias and prejudice can create
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  tremendous dislocations and disharmony in any society,
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  breeding a fixed class structure that also determines access to
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  and allocation of resources. From the point of view of yogic
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  practice, one of the first requirements is for the seeker
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  to become aware of this type of predetermined response built
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  into the subconscious basis that rules much of their responses to
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  life. Once aware of these things, the
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  seeker can begin to take steps to overcome these inherent,
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  untested and unspoken assumptions and thereby liberate
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  himself from the bondage of the fixed habits of mind and the
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  past, which otherwise hinder his growth and development.
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  One tool to do this is to consciously practice a method
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  known as the empty box. In whatever situation the
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  individual finds himself, instead of assuming he knows
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  what to do and how to do it, he can step back and look at it
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  with a fresh viewpoint, as if nothing at all were fixed.
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  And the situation is an empty box waiting for new creative
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  insight for resolution of next steps to be taken.
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  The mother observes, quote, When a being is born upon earth, he
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  is inevitably born in a certain country and a certain
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  environment. Due to his physical parents, he
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  is born in a set of social, cultural, national, sometimes
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  religious circumstances, a set of habits of thinking, of
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  understanding, of feeling, conceiving all sorts of
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  constructions which are at first mental, then become vital
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  habits, and finally material modes of being.
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  To put things more clearly, you are born in a certain society or
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  religion in a particular country, and this society has a
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  collective conception of its own, and this nation has a
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  collective conception of its own.
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  This religion has a collective construction of its own, which
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  is usually very fixed. You were born into it naturally
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  when you are very young, you were altogether unaware of it.
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  But it acts on your formation, that formation, that slow
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  formation through hours and hours, through days and days,
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  experiences added to experiences, which gradually
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  builds up a consciousness. You are underneath it, as
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  beneath a bell glass. It is a kind of construction
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  which covers and in a way protects you, but in other ways
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  limits you considerably. All this you absorb without even
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  being aware of it, and this forms the subconscious basis of
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  your own construction. This subconscious basis will act
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  on you throughout your life if you do not take care to free
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  yourself from it, And to free yourself from it, you must first
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  of all become aware of it. And the first step is the most
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  difficult, For this formation was so subtle, it was made when
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  you were not yet a conscious being, when you had just fallen
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  altogether, dazed from another world into this one laughing.
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  And it all happened without your participating in it, in the
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  least in it. Therefore it does not even occur
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  to you that there could be something to know there, and
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  still less something you must get rid of.
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  And it is quite remarkable that when for some reason or other
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  you do become aware of the hold of this collective suggestion,
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  you realize at the same time that a very assiduous and
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  prolonged labour is necessary in order to get rid of it.
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  But the problem does not end there.
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  End Quote Reference Shriorobindo and the Mother, The Hidden
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  Forces of Life, chapter 3, Hidden Forces around pages 58 to
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  59.