Someone asked me what I thought the single most important thing a person could do was.

That’s a pretty tough question. But it would have something to do with habitual reactions.

The Magic Pill

First since all habitual reactions are a product of the brain then it would be good to treat the brain directly. It would be great if there was a magic pill that made the brain function in our best interests – at all times.

Here is the closest I’ve come so far to finding one. If you listen to the following recording as long as possible, as often as possible, a change will take place at the deepest level.

Ascension Harmonics / Sound Healing – You can comment for further discussion.

Okay back to the original question;  the single most important thing a person could do?

I thought about it for a while. I’ve been doing what I think is best for others. I’ve been looking at life and people and trying to come up with workable solutions to common problems. Finally, I said that since the main objective of my entire website was primarily to reveal to people the presence of habitual reactions, or habitual thinking.

I hadn’t planned it this way. It just kept coming up in every topic I wrote about. So I started looking into it deeper and talking about it more. It soon became the main theme because it seems to be at the root of all problems. I now attempt to provide a system – for moving from habitual reaction to intentional reaction.

I thought I’d try and condense the whole idea into one article. After an hour or so I came to the conclusion – It’s not going to work. Here’s why; If the content of our experience as humans was likened to a good sized desert, each idea, realization, concept, discovery and so on might be likened to a single grain of sand.

From what I know so far –  the subject of habitual reactions contains innumerable separate aspects. If this was represented as the sandpile then each aspect would be one grain of sand. So I can’t “….condense the whole idea into one article”, I can only offer a grain at a time. And these are just the grains I know about.

The Formulation Of Habitual Reaction

In order to explain this, as I understand it so far, I think it would be good to watch a short video first. I cut this clip to be used as an introduction to consciousness. You can find the entire video on Google video or You Tube. But first look at this clip:

http://www.dgswilson.com/player/PrimacyOfConsciousness.html

Now, when I say “I”, I don’t mean the brain, body complex. Although as I set here and try to put this into words I realize I’m using all that to decide what words to place on this page to best relate the idea. It’s a little confusing to use something I say is not me to describe how that thing is not me – but I don’t know how else to do it.

Let’s start with “my” brain, or “our” brain. There is me the “consciousness” and that “me” is conscious of the brain. That me, is now looking for good ways to say things. I want to find the best way of saying these things and I’m using my brain as a tool to do so. There are other parts of this same brain “system” doing a thousand other things at this moment. Don’t ask me what they all are, but blood is flowing, breath is coming in and out and so on.

It’s a pretty awesome system. For that part of my life – staying alive – it’s working well. But, that’s not the part we’re discussing here. What we will look at first is – how do habitual reactions originate? How are they formed, or built?

I, as “consciousness”, am experiencing earth. I’m experience it through a lens. Think of the lens as a computer monitor. In order to experience anything through the monitor you need an operating system, sound and graphics cards, memory and a host of other things.

Lets say we want to think about man. What would we do on the internet? Type man into search right? What would we get back? Everything the search engine had. The search results are kind of like thinking and memory. If I think about man I get a lot of data and pictures.

As the monitor is the lens through which we view the world of the internet, I also have a built in lens for viewing the natural three dimensional world. I experience the world out there, and the world within, through my unique lens.

I also experience the lens, and have control over it. This lens creates, for me, what the program tells it to. Let’s load a program that the lens can display. What could we load that would be finite? Let’s do community. You just had a habitual reaction. Why? Let’s find out. What will we put in the brain for our community display?

• Homes
• People
• Schools
• Parks
• Roads
• Meetings
• Expectations
• Neighbors
• Police
• Pets
• Cars
• Buses
• Lawns
• Fences
• Children
• Family

There is a few of the structural components of a community. Whenever we think about community we’ll “Habitually” flash on those, or something similar. Pretty handy really. A split second picture delivers from memory, to lens, to the conscious “I”. Were any feelings present? There always is and they’re always different depending on who you are.

Feelings are constructed where community is concerned in the same way our physical “Sights and Sounds” picture is. Feelings will be displayed the same way. Maybe there’s a different monitor for feelings. We didn’t see them. But we felt them. Is there a feelings viewer that uses some inner screen. I’m not sure. I am sure we all got a feeling from the thought – community.

Community, like all physical manifestation, is the result of an idea. Some of those ideas are simply structural. What’s the best way to lay out a community so it works best? Okay – build it. But there is also this question – What’s the best ideology to use when building a community? I guess what we’ve decided on for the majority of today’s communities is a mix of sharing and fences.

Non Physical Structure

Sharing is good – up to a point. Showers and spouses are examples of – when, where and why we build fences.

Safety is an idea that might come in to play. Safety in numbers. I can see your house, you can see mine. A sense of security.

So far we have a community program made up of memory involving physical and ideological structure. It’s no where near complete. Just an example of how we’ve stored – community.

While this is a pretty big collection of “things” it’s nothing compared to our whole community program. On top of those few aspects we’ve just looked at – there is every single thing you’ve ever heard about community. Plus every decision you’ve made from all that data. Plus every emotional reactions you’ve had as a result of everything you’ve ever experienced concerning community. Plus every single experience you’ve had interacting with a community.

How many items in the program now? Thousands? Tens of thousands? That’s just from one word – Community.

Every time we hear the word community we have immediate habitual reactions. The reactions that count are the ones that are emotionally structured. The “Things We’ve Been Told” – by the numerous teachers throughout our lives – are all aspects involved in our emotional reactions.

Now, on something like community our reactions may seem to be of little or no consequence. But -how about something like sex or relationships?

Everything we’ve ever been told about sex we use in building our relationships. We build relationships like marriages with these sex ideas. When asked how I feel about marriage I can honestly say – I don’t. When I was 10 years old I had strong feelings concerning girls and marriage. Not one of those feelings was based on anything I’d come up with on my own.

I’ve heard people say, “I listened to everyones ideas, and decided for myself”. How is that possible? If it were possible – how would it be an ideal process? How about – I discarded everything I’ve heard and haven’t decided on anything? Is that okay? Not to have an opinion?

All fights are a result of a difference of opinion, from play grounds to the killing fields. Why would we want them?

Habitual Reactions – Reactions To Programs

I’m not sure if it’s possible to not have habitual reactions. I do know that our emotional reactions stem from thought programs. Thought programs are built from data. Data is collected and assimilated by the brain. So we should – with different data – be able to create new programs. Can we start over and build more intentional programs?

When would we want to do this? For myself, I’d like to do this when I’m not enjoying my emotional reactions. Whenever I feel bad I want to know why. If someone calls me a name and I react badly to it, I feel bad. I had a girl give me what she thought was a compliment years ago. She said she liked it that I could be vulnerable. I didn’t even know what she meant but I had a bad reaction to it. A habitual reaction from some program concerned the word vulnerable.

I still haven’t got it the vulnerable reaction completely figured out. I have taken a look at my reaction to words. Today my reaction to words aren’t as emotional – but they’re still there. To me vulnerable meant, at risk of being hurt. When I told her what I told her she must have thought I was leaving myself open to some hurt. I wasn’t, so I wasn’t making myself vulnerable. So why was I pissed off? Didn’t like the word? Don’t like being misunderstood? I don’t know.

I never really got to the bottom of it, but it did lead me to taking a closer look at language as a whole. Words are just tools for communication. Other than that, they may be meaningless. Words are also misused or used to express opinions. Opinions are just part of the personal programs created by brains from data – good data, bad data, helpful data, wacky data. All meaningless for all I know. Doing this little bit of intentional thinking on the subject has lessened the reaction I have to peoples opinions of me – Good or Bad.

So, I’ve managed to start over and build a few new programs. Or at least modify some programs and suffer less as a result.

Hers an example of an opinion - ”You’ve got to stand for something – Or you’ll stand for anything”. Is this true? It’s stated as a rule for good human behavior. It’s still  just an opinion.

I’ve been able to come up with one, sort of,  rule for good human behavior. “Don’t Cause People To Suffer” It’s fairly simple – Don’t hit them, starve them, kill them and so on. I think this is a good rule. It’s still just my opinion. As a result of this opinion – some people will be separated from others so as to keep them from causing others to suffer. Those (separated) people may not think much of my opinion.

Moving From Habitual Reaction To Intentional Reaction

As far as I know, there is only the information I’ve laid out. I’ve managed to curtail my worst, most dangerous habitual reactions. I guess most of this has been done working directly on my brain. All experiences come to us to some degree via the brain. We might think of it as the filter for the lens.

I think first we must be willing to discard any ideas we’ve formed. We must be completely open-minded about the reality of life. We must also be honest enough to admit that, where these reactions are concerned, we may not know what’s best for ourselves and others.

Another word for the programs we’ve discussed is “Belief Systems”. We must want to stop suffering more than we want to hold on to our belief systems. We must come to a point where we’re willing to discard everything we think we know – about anything.

Why do we need to be willing to discard these belief systems, ideas, opinions and “Things We Think We Know”? Because somewhere in these – is the cause of our suffering. If you’re sad, if you’re angry, lonely, scared, anxious – The cause is somewhere in these programs, belief systems, ideas and opinions.

Watch – A study of thought, with J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm

There’s no medication, prescription or magic molecular compound that can rid us of them. We have to find them and discard them. Use the tool provided on this site.

Use the comments for questions. I can’t answer questions via email – there’s to many and there isn’t enough time. Put questions and responses here and maybe someone else can respond from their personal experience and expertise. Thanks….