I remember having read long long ago that the conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg, whereas the Subconscious part of the mind is like the submerged part of the ice which is huuuge. Of late I have been listening to talks by Louise Hay where she mentions about the Conscious and Subconscious parts of the mind. I had begun reading more on these in the last few days.

This morning, during meditation , I got the clarity on the qualities/functions of the Conscious and Subconscious mind and how they are related.

The following is my interpretation –

The Subconscious mind is involuntary and controls/regulates all the bodily processes. It helps us in carrying out all our physiological activities and in maintaining a healthy body. Isn’t is wonderful that we do not have to consciously breath, pump and circulate blood, digest etc. All of this happens involuntarily which is nothing short of a miracle. The Subconscious mind also strongly influences several of our day to day behaviors. The sudden outbursts of anger or sadness etc emerge from our subconscious mind.

Whereas , the conscious mind helps us in planning and carrying out our day to day activities . The conscious mind collects information from the environment using the 5 senses. The conscious mind also get us into trouble by thinking wrong thoughts continuously and also gets us into wrong habits and behaviors which then stay stuck in the Subconscious.

Here is a simple example given by Louise Hay to identify the Conscious and subconscious parts of the mind –

A child wants to learn to ride a bicycle . Initially the child uses the conscious mind to learn to balance the bicycle and slowly becomes steady. During this process the Subconscious mind is also learning the methodology and stores its learnings. Very soon the child is able to ride the bicycle without any effort by the conscious mind. The Subconscious mind now starts functioning and the child effortlessly rides the bicycle. The subconscious mind has learnt its lessons perfectly and from now on drives the conscious mind to ride the bicycle.

We have been blessed with these two different aspects of the mind which carry out very different and very important tasks.

Once a wrong behavior is stuck in the Subconscious it is very difficult to get the behavior out of the system. Thankfully there is a way out 🙂

There is another part of our mind which is the ‘Awareness’ . It is also called as ‘Witness Consciousness’ , as this part of the mind is able to witness/watch the thoughts arising and changing. It has the ability to observe the thoughts in our conscious mind (which are being subtly influenced by the Subconscious) and can guide/monitor/channelize these thoughts in the right direction , thereby slowly and gradually erasing the wrong habits/behaviors from the subconscious.

How does one identify the ‘Witness Consciousness” ? One can identify the ‘Witness consciousness ‘ very easily during Meditation. During Meditation when we sit still , are silent and focus on the breath or any other object we begin to start noticing our thoughts.Sitting still and focusing on the breath may be a little difficult initially. There is some restlessness. Continue with the Meditation and in a few days you will be able to observe the thoughts coming and going. Once we are able to witness our thoughts during Meditation, we can also start being a witness even during normal waking state.

So, it is very important to watch our thoughts and help the conscious and subconscious mind be more positive, thereby control our emotions , behaviors, habits and have a healthy body and mind.

The above inference is my own after listening/reading various sources.

Currently , I am comfortable with this inference and finding it useful in my day to day life.

Hope to be a Witness to all that is happening in my mind and around me.

~Sarve Janaaha Sukhino Bhavanthu~