Habits: Form New Ones and Break the Bad Ones

1. Habits: Form New Ones and Break the Bad Ones sakhisanga@gmail.com, sakhisanga.blogspot.com, Facebook.com/Sakhisanga

2. Habits : Your Behavior

3. Habits : Your Daily Routine

4. A learned behavioral response that has become associated with a particular situation, esp one frequently repeated Event

5. State of Mind and Being- Your belief System, your Internal Thermostat!

6. State of Mind and Being- Your belief System, your Internal Thermostat! E.G Boy from Poor family, Dog on the throne

7. State of being dependent on something

8. Having No Habits Is Also A Habit!!

9. Stephen Covey once wrote, “Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.” 

10. How are habits formed? Association and Contemplation Upbringing People, Friends, Culture, Media, Sights and Sounds, Conceptions BhagavadGita References: 2.62-63, 15.7-9

11. How are habits formed? Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward Repetition Reward BhagavadGita: 3.36-37

12. How are habits formed? BhagavadGita: 3.36-37

13. How are habits formed? Our response to how people deal with us in life becomes a habit

14. What is our Reward?

15. Habits =Blueprint= Comfort Zone=Attachment=Fears=Patterns= Conditioning=Memes=Identity Soul identifies with this identity We discover that these habits limit our creativity, render us ineffective, or cause us to suffer and block us from developing a relationship with Krsna. BhagavadGita Reference: Chapter 16

16. Gopibharturpadakamalayordasadasa das anudasa- I am eternal soul, servant of Krsna and His devotees. Habits =Blueprint= Comfort Zone=Attachment=Fears=Patterns= Conditioning=Memes=Identity Real Self! False Self! Trying to be sacidananda through the false self leads to frustration! BhagavadGita References: Chapter 16

17. Are we just like the mice trapped in a Digital Skinner box or is there a way out? BhagavadGita :7.14

18. Exercise!! • Step 1 • Write down the bad habit you are trying to quit. Start Simple. Choose Just One!! • Step 2 • Remember the last time you found yourself doing it. Observe your behavior objectively, almost as an outsider might see you. A habit is only a habit until you can observe it. And then it’s a choice.

19.  While contemplating the objects of the senses, ”….activities of the mind—thinking, feeling and willing—are expressed through our senses. And these sensual activities are known as our living condition.” SrilaPrabhupada Lecture, New York, April 15, 1966 • a person develops attachment for them, • and from such attachment lust develops, • and from lust anger arises. • From anger, complete delusion arises, • and from delusion bewilderment of memory. • When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, • and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool. Modern Psychologists differ on what comes first Thinking or Feeling? BhagavadGita Ref:2.58-2.64

20. The gap between stimulus and response is very small but a lot happens in between 

21. Event Trigger (energy, tension, tightness, warmth, numbness • Step 2: • Note the details in black in your observation anger, anxiety, joy, excitement Resulting Behavior(Habit) Observable as language (stories, interpretation, justification, etc.) Reward!

22. BG 14.11 — The manifestation of the mode of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of the body are illuminated by knowledge. • How can we cultivate the mode of goodness? • Internal pause button. • Our internal pause button halts our psychophysical device – our body and mind – in mid-action. • How can we develop such an internal pause button? • By designing for ourselves a custom-made response to sensitive and provocative situations. • This custom-made response may incorporate any or many of the following: • Taking deep breaths, • Recalling an insightful wisdom passage • Reciting an inspiring scriptural verse • Chanting an empowering divine mantra. • Offering a universal or personal contextual prayer

23. How can we develop such an internal pause button? • Through constant practice and detachment(BhagavadGita verses 6.34-6.35) • Hindsight: • We use 20/20 hindsight to reflect at the end of our day using the exercise in the prev page. We remember that we actually did engage in something we did not want to earlier in the day. We jot down notes about our experience, and become curious . (“Hey! Maybe I really do interrupt!”) • Hindsight, closer in time: • After several days, we become increasingly attuned to the behavior. We begin to notice it sooner. (“Oops! I just interrupted Anita!”) Still hindsight, but closer in time. • In the moment observation: • Soon, the internal observer, which we’ve been cultivating, begins to notice what we’re doing as we do it. (“I’m interrupting Sheela right now!”) Because the bulk of our awareness is wrapped up in the critically important thing we’re interrupting Sheela to say, we finish saying it anyway, but awareness is dawning. • Before the moment observation , followed by alternate action: • We begin to notice our impulse before the behavior. (“I feel my energy increasing and my back straightening. I feel impatient. I know what we should do. I’m about to interrupt Anita. No, this time, I’m going to hear him out instead. Slow down, relax, breathe, listen.”) Now, we are changing our behavior. But it happened simply, easily, almost by itself.

25. Do I feel uncomfortable about accepting certain parts about myself?

26. Self –Acceptance is being and neutral and compassionate. I am tiny and imperfect, yet lovable. Krsna loves me unconditionally- I will make the change because I wish to reciprocate with His love How could I do something so stupid? I did it because she triggered me. Its not my fault Hmm. That was not very nice of me to respond like that. I really hurt her. She must have felt terrible I lovingly accept myself with my imperfect parts. I don’t have to convince myself or others that I was perfect in responding in the wrong way. I care for myself .

27. Am I comfortable with myself being imperfect? Can I tolerate myself with my imperfect parts? • Step 3:Self Acceptance • Don’t beat yourself up • Don’t cover for yourself • Be neutral and compassionate!! • I am tiny, imperfect(4 defects) and lovable • I deeply care for myself, my relationship with Krishna • Krsna is loving , He accepts us completely with all our faults • Compassionate to my own myself- accepting myself in that situation then from the platform I can bring about some change. • E.g. If we hurt someone but they still love us , then we are inspired to make a change so we do not hurt them again . E.g parents love their child anyway- so the child feels the impetus to change. • Self-respect(respect for the real self) leads us to work on improving in the appropriate places.

28. Step 3:Self Acceptance • From Acceptance comes Transformation

29. Practice, Detachment and Higher Taste Step 4: Aspire for higher rewards

30. Efforts to quit or moderate bad habits will fail if they focus solely on depriving oneself of doing the habit. Because – even if you are successful in the short term, your reward/habit system will readjust to your new, more reward deficient environment, and you will become more driven for immediate gratification and more likely to relapse. - Paula DeSanto MS, LSW, CPRP, CCDP-D 

31. BG 2.59 — Though the embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, the taste for sense objects remains…………… Current Reward Habit DESIRE BhagavadGita Ref:2.58-2.64

32. Why do you want to become that which you want to become? What is your motive?

33. Goodness Transcendental Goodness Ignorance Passion

34. It is impossible to sustain anything permanently within the three modes of material nature!!

35. Identity based reward system All the demigods and their exalted qualities, such as religion, knowledge and renunciation, become manifest in the body of one who has developed unalloyed devotion for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva. On the other hand, a person devoid of devotional service and engaged in material activities has no good qualities. Even if he is adept at the practice of mystic yoga or the honest endeavor of maintaining his family and relatives, he must be driven by his own mental speculations and must engage in the service of the Lord's external energy. How can there be any good qualities in such a man?- SB 5.8.12

36. Aspire for pleasing Krsna – that is our identity • Bg 2.60 — The senses are so strong and impetuous, O Arjuna, that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a man of discrimination who is endeavoring to control them. • Bg 2.61 — One who restrains his senses, keeping them under full control, and fixes his consciousness upon Me, is known as a man of steady intelligence. BhagavadGita Ref:2.58-2.64

37. BG 2.59 — …… But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness. Current Reward Old Habit Circult TRIGGER Higher Reward (Please Guru and Krsna) Mercy New Habit Circuit Changed Needs , wants and likes BhagavadGita Ref:2.58-2.64

38. Is the current reward for your habit worth it? What new reward connected with pleasing Guru and Krsna would you like to aspire for?

39. All good intentions and attempts need help from above Step 5: Prayer and VaishnavaSeva

40. Step 5:Prayer • We feel humbled by our behavior. • We find this internal work very hard to do on our own • We cry out the Holy Names so Krsna protects us from ourselves

41. God helps those who help themselves! Bg 10.10 — To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me. Bg 10.11 — To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.

42. God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

43. True prayer is a sincere cry of the contrite heart. • “Oh! Lord Please Help me” • The Hare Krishna mantra is itself a prayer invoking good fortune and petitioning the Lord, “O energy of God, O Supreme Lord, please accept me and engage me in Your service.”

46. VaishnavaSevaSB 1.2.16 — O twice-born sages, by serving those devotees who are completely freed from all vice, great service is done. By such service, one gains affinity for hearing the messages of Vāsudeva.

47. VaishnavaSeva • SB 1.2.17 — ŚrīKṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, who is the Paramātmā [Supersoul] in everyone’s heart and the benefactor of the truthful devotee, cleanses desire for material enjoyment from the heart of the devotee who has developed the urge to hear His messages, which are in themselves virtuous when properly heard and chanted. • SB 1.2.18 — By regular attendance in classes on the Bhāgavatam and by rendering of service to the pure devotee, all that is troublesome to the heart is almost completely destroyed, and loving service unto the Personality of Godhead, who is praised with transcendental songs, is established as an irrevocable fact.

48. Step 6: Follow a regulated life • BG 2.64 — But a person free from all attachment and aversion and able to control his senses through regulative principles of freedom can obtain the complete mercy of the Lord. • If regulation becomes your theme then it has its effect in all areas and habits of your life.

49. utsāhānniścayāddhairyāt tat-tat-karma-pravartanāt saṅga-tyāgātsatovṛtteḥ ṣaḍbhirbhaktiḥprasidhyati • There are six principles favorable to the execution of pure devotional service: (1) being enthusiastic, (2) endeavoring with confidence, (3) being patient, (4) acting according to regulative principles [such as śravaṇaṁkīrtanaṁviṣṇoḥsmaraṇam – hearing, chanting and remembering Kṛṣṇa], (5) abandoning the association of nondevotees, and (6) following in the footsteps of the previous ācāryas. These six principles undoubtedly assure the complete success of pure devotional service. Enthusiasm and Determination Step 7:Patience

50. As we do this internal work…….. • We sometimes see previously hidden aspects of our own makeup, of our personality and character. • Often these aspects were hidden only from us and not from others. These shocking new glimpses of ourselves, these realizations that we are not exactly who we thought we were, may bring disappointment. • They arise naturally as a result of our inner work and present us with a choice. • We may wallow in self-pity and self-hatred and, thereby, short-circuit the process of practice. • Or we may simply accept that the good in us exists alongside the not-so-good, and practice with renewed vigor toward transformation. • Not necessarily seeking to change the details of our personality, but rather seeking to change our being.