Suppose we log in to our mail id from a new place or device. If we have set a high level of security for our id, we will be immediately asked to pass through some verification option. Such vetting is meant not to prevent us from logging in, but to decrease our vulnerability to hackers.

We ourselves need a similarly high level of inner security. Why? Because our consciousness is vulnerable to an insider hacker: our mind. We usually think of the desires inside us as our desires. So, our mind can easily pass off its desires as our desires, impelling us to act stupidly, even self-destructively.

To increase our inner security, we need to cultivate self-awareness. The Bhagavad-gita (06.26) points to sharp sustained self-awareness when it exhorts us to refocus our mind whenever and wherever it wanders. For becoming self-aware, we need to cultivate a habit of periodically taking stock of ourselves. For example, we can, at regular intervals, take a few deep breaths and ask ourselves self-awareness stimulating questions such as: “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? How am I doing this?”

This habit of self-awareness will activate immediate self-interrogation whenever we start doing anything new, anything different from our standard activities – just as a secure mail server interrogates a new login. Such self-interrogation will activate an inner alert whenever we become distracted from the things we intended to do.

Self-interrogation is meant not to stop us from doing new things, but to ensure that it is we who consciously choose to do those things. Not that our mind beguiles us into doing those things and we unwittingly go along with it only to realize our folly in hindsight.

By such self-awareness and self-interrogation, we can make wise choices, conducive for our long-term all-round wellbeing.

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