Impulse

Overcoming the Fight to be Right
By Kosi

The impulse to react is encoded in your genetics. This impulse is normally viewed as simply the way you respond to life situations. It seems perfectly acceptable to fight to prove you are right. The mind can conjure up any reason to justify the egoic tendency to fight, to judge, be rude, or mean to someone else. This is often seen as the normal mode of living in the world. But is it really? Is this impulse to fight a normal reaction? Is the tendency of your mind to blame other people and situations for how you feel a normal reaction? Or is this a symptom of a pervasive human disease?

The human brain is wired to fight. It is a deeply ingrained instinctual impulse to survive. This impulse to fight, or react to situations you face in life, is the extremely potent genetic programming rooted in the genetics of your mind and body. It is a built-in insurance policy designed to ensure you survive. This genetic impulse to react is simply based on what you perceive, what you feel, what you think, and what you imagine it all means. This deeply ingrained impulse is simply the bone breaking strong biological survival mechanism of your body.

The impulse to fight is explosive. It seems like an instantaneous or sudden reaction that occurs when something or someone triggers you. The moment you are triggered the mind instantly moves to justify your point of view. It will continuously search for evidence from your past, things you’ve learned, or read, or heard, to justify your reaction, and defend your perspective. The evidence your mind collects only serves to fuel the powerful genetic tendency of your mind to judge, blame, fight, and be downright mean. But what if your impulse to react is really based on an illusion? 

The mind is very tricky. It is an illusion generator. You could say your mind is a bit paranoid—it views everything it perceives through your senses as a potential threat. Its sole function is to keep your physical body alive, but this perspective is skewed by your ego or deep identification with your body. It is a very limited point of view. From this limited perspective of your senses, mind, and ego it always seems like someone or something outside of you causes your reaction. But what if your tendency to react is actually caused by you? What if you are actually reacting to a mirage generated by your own mind and the sensations flowing through your body?

It is common sense to immediately leave a building if it is on fire—this is the basic purpose of your mind, but it is a neurosis of mind to believe everything you think or whatever you imagine might happen based on whatever you are thinking. The mind will always trick you with its incessant thoughts about whatever is happening, has happened, or might happen. The mind is a time traveler that endlessly moves from the past to the future in a somewhat desperate attempt to anticipate any potential threat. It is like a biological radar system constantly scanning your environment to ensure you survive.

You could say the body is more comfortable with reacting. It seems the ego is simply allergic to happiness and the mind is a bit too paranoid to simply relax and enjoy your natural state of the most sublime happiness and peace that you always already are. The genetic mind and ego are actually a bit afraid of happiness and joy. If you are too happy then your mind begins to think you are vulnerable to attack, or so it seems, from the limited perspective of your egoic mind and imagination. 

It is the common experience to be more comfortable with unhappiness than the raw natural state of happiness of simply being here and now. It does take a certain amount of courage to live from your heart free of the gyrations of your mind or live from the core of your being that by its very nature is always unaffected by anything that unfolds in your life, whether it is perceived by your mind to be good or bad.

The mind is actually much more comfortable with the complexity of fighting, judging, meanness, or the deep resistance to what is, versus the utter simplicity of your natural state of pure happiness, which by its very nature is totally fine with whatever is happening.  The mind is constantly looking for the fight or scanning the horizon of your mind looking for the justification to resist or explain your perspective instead of simply embracing what is.

The impulse to react is the nature of anger, fear, hatred, judgment, and many other forms of suffering. The innate movement of mind to react to, or avoid unwanted situations, is the source of all your negative emotions. All the negativity you experience is solely based on an egoic reaction to life—or the dualistic perspective that you are right and everyone else is wrong based simply on whatever you think and imagine.  This is the common human disease.

The antidote for this pervasive disease is simply to stop. It is simply a matter stopping—period—nothing added. Stop thinking. Stop imagining. Stop reacting—not as a suppression of the reaction—but rather as a burning in the impulse to react. If you allow yourself to burn in the impulse—it will eventually pass by like a cloud in the sky.  

If you remain still in the impulse before you follow the movement of your mind to react, at first the impulse itself will feel like an intense burning sensation than it will suddenly vanish.  The impulse and the reaction simply cannot be maintained without thinking. It is like a wave in the ocean in perpetual motion. It cannot be maintained without thought.

The challenge is not to believe the next thought that appears in your mind or immediately react in the moment. Simply be still and quiet. If you wait twenty-four hours before you react to anything—you will see for yourself that the impulse to react will simply vanish. 

The secret key of happiness is stillness. The more remain still and quiet the more you will be able to see through the impulse to react. The more you simply remain still the happier and happier you will naturally be. 

The moment you stop believing whatever thoughts appear in your mind the more you will simply be what you naturally are—happy : )

The old adage is really true; do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Happiness is always here the moment you stop thinking!

Tat Sat
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