Indriya

Thoughts often originate from our sense organs or Indriya. Excitement and motivation for things like movies, TV shows, or video games come from first hearing about them through our senses. People 2,000 years ago weren’t excited about modern entertainment because they had never been exposed to it through their senses.
Sensory Input and Thoughts, Advertising, Motivation and Senses

So if you really think about what makes you excited, where did that originate from? It originated from your sense organs. So in order to be excited about something in order to be motivated to watch something you have to hear about it first, right? Obviously, it has to enter your consciousness, it has to enter your awareness through your sense organs.

• Reflect on how your sensory experiences shape your thoughts, desires, and motivations.
• Consider how you might cultivate the right sensory inputs to generate positive and productive thoughts.

Society recognizes the link between sensory input, thoughts, and behavior through fields like advertising, which aims to manipulate thoughts and actions by creating specific sensory inputs. Support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous also utilize this understanding by encouraging members to change their sensory environment to promote sobriety.
Advertising and Thought Manipulation, Alcoholics Anonymous, Startup Incubators

societally, we know that there’s the field of advertising right? And what is the goal of the field of advertising? It is to actually populate your mind with particular thoughts. That’s what they’re literally paid to do. So they create an advertisement and what is an advertisement? It’s a sensory input. So what they’ve sort of figured out is that if we create the right kind of sensory input, it will create the right kind of thought in your head. If we can manipulate the thoughts in your head, what we will do is manipulate your behavior.

• How have advertisements or your sensory environment influenced your thoughts and behaviors, positively or negatively?
• What changes can you make to your sensory inputs to cultivate the kinds of thoughts and actions you desire?

Sensory impressions often come with emotional associations, which also shape our thoughts. A child growing up in a toxic household may associate harsh words with negative emotions, leading to thoughts of low self-esteem. These thought patterns then influence behavior and life choices.
Childhood Trauma, Self-Esteem, Emotional Associations

So if a child is grown up and told, Hey, you’re awesome, you can do anything that you want to accomplish in the world. You’re the best person in the world, that child will grow up to be arrogant and entitled. And if a child is told, Oh, you know, you’re you’re an absolute piece of crap. You’re not going to accomplish anything. That child will grow up to have self esteem problems, and arrogance. And self esteem problems. What are those actually in the mind? They are particular thoughts, right, a thought that I deserve this, or I don’t deserve this.

• Reflect on how your past sensory experiences and their emotional associations may be shaping your current thoughts and behaviors.
• Consider how you might reframe or heal from negative emotional attachments to promote healthier thought patterns.

In addition to sensory impressions and emotional associations, the yogis identified a third source of thoughts: transcendental thought. This includes flashes of inspiration, creativity, or genius that seem to come from outside oneself. While important to recognize, transcendental thought is often the result of extensive meditation or creative processes and is not the primary focus for most individuals.
Meditation, Creative Inspiration, Higher Consciousness

So sometimes as human beings will kind of connect the dots or things will sort of make sense to us. What those things can’t really be tied to a particular sensory experience, or kind of the memory of a sensory experience. And I’m not saying this to kind of be like mystical, but really, it’s just important to understand that as we meditate and as we cultivate particular states of mind, we will start to have thoughts that originate from like, other places, rather than sensory organs.

• Have you ever experienced a flash of inspiration or creative insight that seemed to come from beyond your normal thought processes?
• How might you cultivate conditions conducive to transcendental thought, such as through meditation or creative practices?

By understanding the origins of thoughts, we can train our sensory organs to create a filter or control on the thoughts that populate our minds. This involves both managing thoughts through practices like meditation, and carefully curating the sensory inputs we expose ourselves to.
Sensory Training, Thought Management, Meditation for Thought Control

So now that we understand the importance of senses for creating thoughts, the next natural step is to train our sensory organs. The more that we train our sensory organs, the more that we will sort of create a filter or a control on what thoughts will populate our mind

• What specific practices can you implement to train your sensory organs and manage your sensory inputs?
• How might this training and management of sensory experiences impact your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors over time?