How can we identify our natural inclinations?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if we are not aware of our dispositions, and we sometimes keep doing the same things again and again without realizing what we are doing wrong, how can we detect and correct those things? Yeah, there are two basic ways in which we can learn about ourselves. First is through introspection. And the second is through discussion.
With discussion, we look at ourselves. So introspection means when we are just going through our life, instead of just running from one event to another to another, we can have periodic breaks. When we look at ourselves as human beings, we have the capacity to be the subject of observation as well as the object of observation.
That means I can think, okay, I’m sitting now, I’m sitting on this chair. How do I look to others? Am I making sense in what I’m speaking? I can envision myself in your place looking at myself. So like that, we can, we can look at ourselves and evaluate, okay, in this situation, I acted like this.
I could have acted like this. What made me act like this? What was I thinking at that time? What was right about that thing? What was wrong about that thing? Sometimes if there are major issues which we are dealing with, it might be helpful to journal, to write things down. Because when we write things down, we get the thoughts out of the head.
So the congestion in the head goes down. When the thought comes out, then there is more objectivity. We can evaluate what is happening.
Whether thoughts are right or they are wrong or they have their mixture of right and wrong, we can all evaluate that. That kind of introspection is very helpful in understanding our patterns, some of which may be conscious, some of which may be subconscious. Secondly, if we have some close friends, normally, we look at everyone through our mind.
That means, you know, if somebody speaks sweetly to us, you know, what does this person want? Why is he speaking so sweetly? We always try to see people through the, we always tend to see people through that filter. But there are some people, if they are close to us, and especially if they are themselves spiritually minded, and they also have some wisdom within them, then most people, we look at them through our mind. But some people, if they are really close to us, we look at our mind through them.
My mind is saying like this, they are saying like this. How is this like? Why is this conflict? Who is right? Sometimes if somebody tells us something which does not agree with us, our mind just rejects them. We start blaming them, labeling them, and basically rejecting them.
But if somebody is close to us, then we can evaluate our mind through them. So they help, they can become like a mirror, not a judgmental mirror, but a mirror that helps us discover or uncover ourselves. So through the discussion also we can learn.
And sometimes just when we go through life, it is that adversity introduces us to ourselves. Sometimes in certain adversities, we crumble. Sometimes in some adversities, we find that I thought I would not be able to do it, but I was able to do it.
So sometimes when we crumble in some adversities, we discover some weaknesses which we did not know we had. Sometimes in some adversities we struggle, but we go through them, we discover strength that we don’t have. So both that we didn’t know we had.
So that way, by introspection and by discussion and by observing ourselves in life, especially in the extreme moments of life, we can learn more about ourselves, both our strengths as well as our conditionings. Does it answer your question? Thank you.