Decision Making Apparatus

The quest for understanding how the mind and emotions operate, is a prolonged one in meditation practice. It may require years of daily effort to come to terms with this, to see the psychic actions which are involved in making a decision. When one is of the view that the person makes decision and hence is responsible for his/her actions, one actually experiences the mind drumming up opinions and make choices. But one does not see the details of how the mind arrives at a final idea which it implements or tries to factor into action.

This happens because one feels that the mental and emotional operations are one wholesome machinery which is a thorough willpower apparatus. What really happens it that the mind has many parts to it. Each of these must turn like little gears in a system. Just as one does not see the moving parts in an enclosed engine, but one may see the drive shaft and fly wheel, so when decisions are made one does not see the various operations involved.

One impediment is that there are such rapid actions in the mind, that the observing self is unable to see how those shafts rotate. One cannot understand the movements because one simply cannot perceive those actions which lead to a certain conclusion being spat out by the mind. The conclusions are accepted as instructions for action. Usually, these processes are not perceived by the coreSelf. It only sees the attention beam’s movements in making conclusions and presenting decisions. The self does not usually see how it makes the decisions by acquiring information from the object, comparing those decisions with information which is stored as memory and then deriving a course of action with the coreSelf having no input in the process, except to consent the final conclusion to act, recede from the target or keep it under surveillance.

In doing the four higher processes of the eightfold action of Patanjali yoga, one will in time, come to the stage where one can see some operations of the mind in slow-motion. This gives insight into the fact that on the average, the mind is so rapid in making decision, that the observing self could not possibly participate due to the speed with which the decisions are made, and the conclusions are spat out, by the mind.

The acquirement of information is done rapidly, such that the core may not be aware of these actions. When there is sense convergence on a target-object, it happens with such rapidity that the core may only observe the acquirement of the object and not the fact that this happens in stages, such that when a conclusion to act or not to act, is made, the core has no idea of the fragments of the decision-making process. The core only sees the decisions and then gives its consent. It has no other way of dealing with the rapid mental actions, because some actions happen with such rapidity that the core has no idea about it and must rely only on the spat-out conclusions or spat out suggestions for action.

Here is some magnification and slow-motion observation which I did in a meditation which was supervised by Yogeshwarananda on October 22, 2024.

•  Attention energy starts out to find a desired object.
• While driving an automobile to a grocery store, it scans the environment.
• It seems that a decision is made to relax focus while driving.
• Since the colors in the environment are green due to much foliage on either side of the street, there is no eagerness.
• Suddenly there is eagerness when the attention energy through the sense of sight, perceives a bright color. The attention energy rapidly moves to the bright color. It is like a laser beam. It reached that color but before doing so, in some split seconds, it realizes that the bright color does not match anything which is desired. It makes this decision by comparing the image imprint which it derived from the target object with what it has in memory.
• This comparison results in a loss of eagerness to grab the colorful object.
• The attention beam relaxes and sets itself to discover the next colorful object.

This happened in a split second, where the coreSelf observed this happening in slow motion. Usually, because of the rapidity of the mind, the core does not see this. Because of the laziness of the core, it prefers to relax and allow the mind apparatus to make the decision with no censorship or checking by the core.

The minute actions within the psyche are hard to observe. Descriptions of it, are not easy to put to language. These reports are valuable however and are better than just stating that it is formless or that it is imperceptible or that it is brahman or that it is in the absolute or that it is a oneness total.