Mindless matters

Staying at a friend’s place in Delhi, last night and early this morning I woke up three times to the sound of rain falling outside. I remember vividly, at 1.30 AM, 4.30 AM and 5.30 AM, hearing the sound and seeing water trickling down the windowsill. (Before anyone starts wondering why I am waking up so often – please read this for further information https://santhoshsramblings.blogspot.com/2025/10/i-do-not-sleep-well.html ) 

The previous evening was hot, and the taxi driver had told me about the increasing heat and hoped that it would rain. But then, at 6.30 AM, I got up and looked outside, and there was no evidence of any rain at all during the night. 

The question I ended up asking myself was – was it a dream? But then, I saw the time, saw the window, and heard the sound. I realised that the sound might have come from the fan, which was on full speed, and I mistook it for the sound of water falling. But where did what I saw come from? Was my mind a Meandering Mind? Based on an unexpressed desire, wandering through my desires and projecting the same as an illusion, the desire of wanting to have rain. Projecting this in my subconscious and then seeing the same in my imagination? 

The mind is too complex for us to understand. Is the mind the brain, or brain plus, or beyond the brain? Is everything within the neural circuits that we know about? And the ability of the mind to trick us, by projecting our desires and then keeping us focused on them, is well known. Even when we read something, if we are fixed in our thinking, we read what is given to us with our pre-set mind and understand it the way we want to understand.

 

The technologists who have set up the social media structures and the marketing technology systems understand this. They know that desires can be used to take our minds down rabbit holes and gently push us to make decisions. Manipulated Minds - Using self-perpetuating dopaminergic surges, through like buttons. Manipulating our brains through AI-driven algorithms. And we live in virtual spaces as zombies, caught up with manipulated minds.  

Studies now show that children who are constantly exposed to negative inputs in childhood can grow up insecure and anxious. And again, this is from the same neuronal effects. Brains that are exposed to negative inputs become depressed, unknowingly manipulated by negativity. Even prenatally (or while in the womb). 

 

That is why the Good Book says – Manage your Mind! Be transformed by changing the way you think. How does one do this? 

Three ways - Think less, think simple, think good! The problem is – if I think less, I cannot ramble, and rambling gives me significance! And rambling thinking itself is complex and confused thinking! But then, managing the mind requires some boundaries. Boundaries of desires, boundaries of “wanting to change the world” - which one cannot, anyway – and boundaries of not running down rabbit holes in the virtual world.

But then why am I so preoccupied with the mind? Why am I overthinking about the mind? Because we live in a world that tells us the mind is what gives us identity. These days, I come across  quite a few of my senior generation who have loosing memory. Or those who have a Meaningless Mind. The person who “ whose “thinking is impaired” does not look or feel like the one you knew. What he or she says, does not make meaning. 

In the book, Dementia: Living in the Memories of God, John Swinton says, we see people by what they think and communicate to us. Identity is linked to their mind. Calling someone lost or of impaired mind assumes we can judge their mind, that the mind exists only in the head, and that clear thinking defines a person. All three assumptions are doubtful. People with dementia are not simply “losing their minds,” and the term “dementia” itself is misleading. Which means mind is not the centre of our identity. 

 

So, what does this all mean? I should change the way I think. Thinking about mind itself. Work towards a Metamorphosing Mind. As it is said, “I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” 

Not get caught up in desires that do not make any sense, even if it is simply rain. And live as fully human, even when my mind confuses me or my mind makes no sense. 

Thank you for allowing your mind to be confused by this blog.