Human instinct is now measurable, based on modern science and research into behavior. We have been mapped and those in the field of human research can identify and label most of our personality.
For example, it's understood that the human instinctive brain or mammalian part of our brain is easy to hypnotize. If you want to put it more subtly, we're easy to influence.
Secondly, humans instinctively look to and follow leaders or authority figures. This makes sense because we're social creatures who live in communities, where leaders arise naturally and are a great asset to the survival of the community.
Thirdly, and following on from the previous point, we are tribal and instinctively group into familiar communities. Birds of a feather flock together, as the saying goes.
And lastly, we can be pushed into emotional override, where emotional responses cloud our mental clarity and ability to think rationally, much to our disadvantage.
These four characteristics of human nature are part of all of us. They helped us to survive in the past, though they may also lead to problems because they are qualities which can be easily manipulated in almost all of us.
Those at the top of the pile who know this about us will use this knowledge to manipulate us against our better judgement and to favor those elite.
Therfore, critical self-reflection is constantly necessary to stay aware of our own minds, behavior and perception of the world around us.
Are we being led by unscrupulous leaders to follow them or consume their products all to our detriment as they use media and advertising to lure us like donkeys with a carrot?
Are we being steered into tribes of us VS them, divided and thus more readily conquered? This is a classic strategy used by the elite or the empire to dominate and subjugate the masses.
Are our emotions being manipulated, where we are played like a mark at a rigged card trick? By appealing to the emotional associations with a product or asset, we're lured into buying it, rather than looking at the fundamentals.
Religion can be like that sometimes too. As can meme coin trading. Priests, politicians and punters all shill their snake oil by appealing to our need for a leader, need to believe in something and need to belong.
These drives are so strong that sometimes they may override our better judgement and draw us into something that feels good but may be fake or short lived. It happens all the time.
Knowing this is part of knowing yourself as a human being and part of the vast insight required on the path of self realization.
Follow the wrong leader and you are doomed to failure, like one blind person leading another. Allow yourself to be easily swayed or emotionally manipulated and you could spend time and money in the wrong place altogether.
The wise have recommended this for millennia and pointed out how easy the mind is to bewilder. It's a rare few that see through the illusion and are able to align within themselves, as well as align with the highest cause.
Those that succeed in doing this will be immune to bewildering influences and influencers, as well as any reaction or repercussion to any negative investment of time and energy.
Bhagavad Gita ch4:23
gata-saṅgasya muktasya
jñānāvasthita-cetasaḥ
yajñāyācarataḥ karma
samagraṁ pravilīyate
SYNONYMS
gata-saṅgasya—unattached to the modes of material nature; muktasya—of the liberated; jñāna-avasthita—situated in transcendence; cetasaḥ—of such wisdom; yajñāya—for the sake of Yajña (Kṛṣṇa); ācarataḥ—so acting; karma—work; samagram—in total; pravilīyate—merges entirely
TRANSLATION
The work of a man who is unattached to the modes of material nature and who is fully situated in transcendental knowledge merges entirely into transcendence.
PURPORT
Becoming fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, one is freed from all dualities and thus is free from the contaminations of the material modes. He can become liberated because he knows his constitutional position in relationship with Kṛṣṇa; and thus his mind cannot be drawn from Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Consequently, whatever he does, he does for Kṛṣṇa, who is the primeval Viṣṇu. Therefore, all his works are technically sacrifices because sacrifice involves satisfying the Supreme Person, Kṛṣṇa. The resultant reactions to all such work certainly merge into transcendence, and one does not suffer material effects.
Reference: Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by Swami A C Bhaktivedanta, original MacMillan 1972 edition, freely available at prabhupadabooks.com.
Image: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/ai-generated-palace-brain-idea-8392928/
Edited and published from my mobile device onto the Hive blockchain for those who want to know themselves.