Break Free of Mental Conditioning

Negative experiences develop a mental conditioning in a person. One who can break free from this and discover the divine way of thinking is rightly guided.

Chapter 17 of the Quran states: “We send down in the Quran that which is healing and a mercy to those who believe; as for the evil-doers, it only increases their loss. When We bestow a favour upon a person, he turns his back and draws aside; and when evil afflicts him he gives himself up to despair. Say to them, ‘Everyone acts in his own way, and your Lord knows best who is rightly guided.’” (17:82-84)

When a person is granted ease and affluence, he demonstrates great self-confidence, becoming stubborn and unwilling to accept any new proposition, as if he were made of iron that cannot be bent. It is when he is deprived of all material props that he experiences a state of helplessness. Then he loses all courage and falls a prey to frustration.

In the present world, everyone undergoes this experience, but there is no one who discovers himself in the process. In this world, where a person is granted full freedom, he shows total disregard for the truth and does not try to imagine what his plight will be when Doomsday comes to take away all his power. How weak a person is, yet how powerful he considers himself to be!

People’s circumstances and bent of mind gradually lead them into forming a particular mental framework within which their thoughts are conditioned. But the right way of thinking is that which accords with divine knowledge. And the wrong way is that which runs counter to divine knowledge. This is the point on which a person is being tested. What he has to do is break this framework formed by his mental conditioning, so that he may see things as they are. That is to say that he should start seeing things from the divine viewpoint. Those who break free of this mental conditioning and discover the divine way of thinking are the ones who are rightly guided.