4. Preconceived Notions
T he Gita emphasizes the need to understand our indriyas (senses) as they are the bridge between our inner and outer worlds. Krishna says that the meeting of the senses with the sense-objects causes polarities of pleasure and pain. He tells Arjuna to learn to tolerate them, as they are transient. From a scientific point of view, our brain has about a hundred billion neurons. Some of them are wired by DNA to take care of automatic functions of the body while others are wired by us over the course of our lives. On our first day behind the wheel, we all found driving difficult . We slowly got used to it with practice. This is because of the hard wiring done by the brain, with unutilised neurons, to coordinate all the activities involved in driving. This kind of hard wiring happens with all skills, from simple walking to complex tasks like sports and performing surgeries. Hardwiring leading to the formation of new neural patterns, saves a lot of energy for the brain and ...