Why You Feel Overwhelmed
Overwhelm comes from taking in information far faster than you can process it, which leaves the subconscious like a library with no indexing system and confusion as the result.
Dandapani explains that reason is a derivative of how well the subconscious is organised, because reasoning depends on gathering information, processing it and producing an output. When input outruns processing, the result is confusion, overwhelm, anxiety and stress. He closes by telling anyone serious about the spiritual path not to abandon reason.
What this talk covers
- The subconscious is a storehouse of everything you have lived, the good and the bad, and your ability to reason is a derivative of how well it is organised.
- Reasoning depends on gathering information, processing it and being able to produce an output.
- A cluttered subconscious is a library with no indexing or categorising system, so you could hold a hundred thousand books in it and still only get confusion.
- If you can file twenty books a day but you are putting a thousand in, the result is overwhelm, then anxiety and stress, and that is where people are today.
- Anyone serious about the spiritual path should not abandon reason, and a teacher should be able to articulate the goal, the path, the practices and why you are doing them.
The rate of input is far greater than the rate of being able to process information.Dandapani
Questions
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Because the rate at which you take information in is far greater than the rate at which you can process it. Dandapani says the outcome of that gap is confusion first, then overwhelm, anxiety and stress.
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Reason is a derivative of how well the subconscious is organised. Without indexing and categorising what goes in, you cannot extract what you need, and the outcome is confusion.
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Reason. Dandapani says a teacher should be able to articulate the goal, the path and the practices, and give you the reason for why you are doing what you are doing.
Transcript
528 words · 3:12
One thing that is coming up for me is, let's say you have a subconscious storehouse full of impressions from your life. A lot of those are not helpful. And there's a lot helpful too, right?
The subconscious is a warehouse. It's a storehouse of everything, of where you are today. Totally. Totally.
The good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly, all of it. But reasoned and intellect is comprised of that. It is a derivative of that, correct? Correct.
primitive of how well that is organized. The better I'm able to reason and process information, my ability to reason comes from my ability to gather information, process that information, and then be able to provide outputs.
But if I gather information like a library and I don't index and categorize the books, the outcome is confusion. I can't extract information. Back in the day when I was growing up and I wanted information, I had to go to my school
I had to look at the index, find where the hell that book was, on what shelf, what row, what floor, and then get that information. And because it was organized, I could gather information and use that information to help me with what I want to do.
A cluttered subconscious is like a library that has no indexing system or categorizing system. So you could have 100,000 books in that. What would be the outcome?
Confusion. You know, so the first step for reason is organizing information and how we gather information, how much information we get. I can't organize my library if every day I'm throwing 3,000 books in there.
If my rate of organization is 20 books a day, you know, to file and categorize the little number on it, but I'm putting a thousand books in, it causes overwhelm, being me being overwhelmed and then anxiety and stress, and that's where people are today. The rate of input is far greater than the rate of being able to process information.
Outcome confusion, no reason. Yeah, so I guess the takeaway is that creating the conditions for reason is incredibly useful for a clarified subconscious. Yes.
But there definitely is an acknowledgement that your reason may be under the influence of things that might not be fully helpful until you do that. Absolutely, yes. And especially on the spiritual path, you know, I would say the greater one of the biggest
things a person listening to this podcast, if you're serious about going on the spiritual path, you know, one of the biggest things is don't abandon reason, you know. If you're learning from someone, they should be able to articulate to you the goal, the path, the practices, and give you a reason of why we're doing what we're doing.
Because I've been in this line of work for decades, I could sit here the next 10 hours and tell you all the catchy hell stories I've been told and heard, purely because people have abandoned reason. And when you abandon reason, anything goes.
And you don't want to go down that path. It's very harmful. detrimental and could result in terrible outcomes.