Isnât most of our thinking habitual? From childhood, we have been taught to think along a certain line, whether as a Christian, a communist or a Hindu, and we dare not deviate from that line because the very deviation is fear. So, fundamentally our thinking is habitual, conditioned; our minds function along established grooves, and naturally there are also superficial habits which we try to control. Now, if the mind altogether ceases to think in habits, then we shall approach the problem of a superficial habit entirely differently. If you are investigating, trying to find out whether your mind thinks in habits, if that is what you are really concerned with, then the habit of smoking, for example, has quite a different meaning. That is, if you are interested in inquiring into the whole process of habit, which is at a deeper level, you will treat the habit of smoking in a totally different manner. Being inwardly very clear that you really want to stop, not only the habit of smoking but the whole process of thinking in habits, you do not fight the automatic movement of picking up a cigarette and all the rest of it, because you see that the more you fight that particular habit, the more life you give to it. But if you are attentive, completely aware of that habit without fighting it, you will see that that habit ceases in its time. Therefore, the mind is not occupied with that habit.
From Collected Works, Vol. 9
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