How To Get Rid Of Bad Habits?

Acharya Prashant: How to get rid of your bad habits? What’s your name?

Questioner: Sandeep

Acharya Prashant: Sandeep. Sit Sandeep. First of all, do you see that Sandeep is assuming something? What is Sandeep assuming?

Questioner: Sandeep is assuming that there are some bad habits, and there are some good habits.

Acharya Prashant: Lovely, Sandeep is assuming that there are some bad habits, and there are some good habits.

What is a habit? What is a habit?

A habit is a programmed way of operating. The mind has been programmed to just behave in a particular way, mechanically keep on acting without understanding, just out of the momentum of memory. In the past, I have been acting in such and such ways, and because I did the act repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly, now I don’t even have to think. The action just happens, right? We call it habit.

When you are acting out of habit, there is no need to understand, not only is there no need to understand, there is also no need to even think. Ask yourself — when you are habitually doing something, do you even need to think? Do you need to think?

Students: No, sir.

Acharya Prashant: It just happens, like a pre-programmed machine, you act. Now tell me, how can some habits be good and others be bad? Habit itself means that understanding, that consciousness, not even thoughts are needed. Habit means that I am no more a living entity, I am a programmed machine. All habit is in a sense, a cessation, a stopping of living, because to live is to understand, right? All habits are a cessation of living. How can some habits be good? How can some habits be good?

So, Sandeep, first of all see that this distinction between good habits and bad habits is an arbitrary distinction, this is a meaningless distinction. This distinction holds good in no sense. Then you will ask, “Sir, why have we been told then, that some habits are good and other habits are bad?” Because that’s what we commonly hear, don’t we?

Students: Yes, sir.

Acharya Prashant: That there are good habits and one must have good habits. Every child is being told that kind of a thing, that you must have good habits. Don’t you see that what is called a good habit in one house, is called a bad habit in another house? What is a good habit in one sect, is a bad habit in another sect. In one country what is considered good, in another country it is considered very bad. So, the child is told of this good and bad stuff according to the needs, wishes, fancies, assumptions of the people who are bringing up the child. It’s a very random thing.

If it suits the society, it will say, “It’s a good thing.” Another society, it does not suit, and the society will say, “It’s a bad thing.” But what is certain is, whether good or bad, whatever be the label that is given to a habit, a habit certainly means that I’m dead. A habit is like sleepwalking. Have you seen people sleepwalking? You might not have seen them, but you would have heard of them, right? He does not know anything and still he is moving.

Is a habit not like sleepwalking? You do not know what is happening and still you are doing it, a habit is like that, right? You do not know what you are doing and still it is happening, and if somebody comes and wakes you up and draws your attention, you suddenly kind of open your eyes and you say with a jerk, with a shock, “Oh! What was I doing?” And then, you realize that it is just the force of habit, it happens right?

You have habituated and habit has great force. We say, “Its momentum comes from past.” So, what is certain is that to be in habit is to be dead. You do not realize anything. You do not realize anything.

So, let’s not say, “Good habits and bad habits,” let’s just say, “Consciousness and deadness.” You must not ask, “How can I get rid of my bad habits,” the question should be, “How can I get rid of all habits?” Do you get this? Not only bad habits but also the so-called good habits. Not only the bad habits, also the so-called good habits. No habit is a really good habit. One has to get rid of all habits.

How to get rid of the habits?

One remains habituated because one starts finding pleasure in remaining unconscious. To be conscious is to be in the present. When you are acting from habit, you need not be in present. You need not know what is the reality. You need not open your eyes to the truth. You can be comfortably asleep and still act, right?

See, action and thought — these are the things that arise from habit, right? What comes from habit? Habituated thought and habituated action. Now, you are here, you need to act. Habit helps you in acting, how? Habit says, “Remain asleep, remain asleep, from the past some action will arise, from memory some action will happen.” So now, without knowing the present, you can still act.

See, it’s like this, you’ll understand. A question paper comes in front of you, and you have been answering question papers all your life, right? If you really have to answer a question, really-really you have to answer a question, then what must you do? You must be awake, and you must pay attention to the question, and you must understand the question, right? Only then you can answer the question, correct?

But all that requires a little bit of effort against sleep, against sleep. And the mind is prone to sleeping. To really answer a question from the question paper that is in front of you, requires that you must be clearly attentive. But the mind is prone to distractions, right? Here is the question paper and outside the window, something else is happening, and you want to look at that. To answer the question paper, you have to be fully present to the question paper, right?

You don’t want to do that, so what do you do? You say, “Oh, why do I need to be awake and present? I can just answer this question from memory, from habit. All my life, I have been answering questions from question papers. So, let me just repeat the answers that I gave last year.”

This is what habit means, that I’ve been doing it since a long time, let me just continue doing the same thing without understanding what is happening. So, I am habituated to giving a particular kind of answer, let me just repeat that answer.

Now, the question paper is fresh, and the question is new, and your answer is coming from the past year. It’s a stale answer, it’s a repeated answer. How many marks will you get? Zero. This is what happens to people who act from habit. They get zero in the exam of life. Because every moment is new, but your response is old and habituated.

Habit means there is nothing new, there is only habit. Whereas, every moment is asking a new question, it is a fresh challenge. And you are very well equipped to respond to that challenge, how? By using the intelligence that is in you. By going to the depths of your consciousness, by being fully awake.

If you look at people around you, if you look at the common man, don’t you say that all of them are failing in the exam of life? Is that not very clear? Is the common man of the road, really clearing the exam of life? Is he really able to respond to life’s various challenges properly? Is he able to do that? No. He is under tension and he is constantly thinking that he is failing, and he is hoping that one day he will succeed. That is only because most of us, most of the time, are living in habit. And habits become very-very sticky when you start calling them ‘good habits.’

Even now, Sandeep is asking how to get rid of bad habits, so some habits will be removed and that will be very, very good. Some habits will be removed, but which habits does he want to attack? The bad habits. And which habits does he want to protect? Good habits. So, which habits are going to remain with him? Good habits. It is the good habits that do the maximum damage to you because you call them good and hence, you don’t remove them.

It’s like calling some poisons as good poisons and other poisons as bad poisons. Which poison is likely to kill you? The good poison or the bad poison? Yes obviously, both. But the bad poison is less likely to kill you because? Because you are already calling it bad poison, so you will try to get rid of it. But good poison will surely kill you, why? Because you are naming it good poison, so what will you do? You will take it. ‘It’s a good thing, it’s a good thing.’

Don’t live out of habit, live out of wakefulness. Your action must not be habituated action; your thought must not be a pattern-based thought. Your thought, your action must come out of your understanding, is that right? Don’t depend on habit.