Why Do I Argue with Myself?
You open the fridge at 10 pm. One voice says you're not even hungry. Another is already reaching for the leftover rice. A third points out that you said this exact thing last night. And a fourth, somewhere in the back, is properly hurt that you'd think so badly of yourself.
Four voices, one fridge. Who are all these people?
Yesterday was about the mind's moods. Today is about its structure, because the argument in front of the fridge means your mind is working exactly as the old texts say it does.
One mind, four jobs
Vedanta calls the inner instrument antahkarana, and says it has four functions. Swami Sivananda lists them in Mind: Its Mysteries and Control: manas (the doubting, thinking mind), buddhi (the intellect that decides), chitta (memory, the mind-stuff) and ahankara (the sense of "I").
He's careful to say it's one mind doing four jobs, and he explains it with an example I keep coming back to. You're a judge when you sit in court, a cook when you're in the kitchen, and a president when you chair a meeting. Same person, different function, different name.
So, in his words: when the mind wavers between yes and no, it's called manas. When it weighs things up and decides, it's buddhi. When it says I and mine, it's ahankara. When it stores the impressions and does the remembering, it's chitta.
Back to the fridge. Manas is the one going back and forth about the rice. Buddhi is the one who knows you're not hungry. Chitta is the one that remembers last night. And ahankara is the one who took it personally.
The chariot
The Katha Upanishad has a picture for this that is more than two thousand years old and still the clearest thing I know on the subject (1.3.3 to 1.3.4).
The body is a chariot. The senses are the horses. The mind, manas, is the reins. The intellect, buddhi, is the charioteer. And you, the self, are the passenger sitting in the back.
Look at what the picture says about the fridge. The horses, your senses, have smelt the rice and they're pulling. The reins, manas, are slack and going whichever way the horses go. The charioteer, buddhi, knows the road home. The question is whether the charioteer has hold of the reins.
The Upanishad spells it out. When the intellect is weak and the mind is loose, the senses run wild like bad horses. When the intellect is firm and the mind is held, the senses obey like good ones (1.3.5 to 1.3.6).
Why the argument happens
Here's what I'd missed for years. The argument is between parts that have different jobs. Manas is supposed to go back and forth. That's its function, weighing yes and no. Sivananda says it's the mind's nature to run towards objects, just as it's water's nature to be cool. Blaming manas for wavering is like blaming water for being wet.
The trouble starts when buddhi, the one who decides, goes silent, and manas is left to run the show with the senses. Then the fridge wins, every time, because nobody's holding the reins.
The Gita describes the same chain of command in one verse. The senses are higher than the body, the mind is higher than the senses, the intellect is higher than the mind, and the self is higher still (3.42). Order matters. When the lower one overrules the higher, you get the 10 pm rice.
Who took it personally
The fourth voice deserves its own paragraph. Ahankara is the part that says I. Sivananda calls it the seed of the mind, and says that of all thoughts the thought of I is the root thought, the first to come up.
It's useful. You need an I to get through a day. The trouble is that ahankara also claims everything that happens. I ate the rice. I'm the kind of person who eats the rice. And now the fridge has become a verdict on your character, which is why you felt hurt, which is why tomorrow night you'll eat the rice again to feel better.
Notice, Sivananda says, that when you watch somebody else suffer a stomach ache you feel nothing, and when it's your stomach you cry out. The only difference is ahankara saying mine. Ownership turns an event into an injury.
My own version wasn't the fridge. I once went to a friend's flat for one night and it took me five more days to convince myself to leave, mostly because I didn't want to look at my bank balance. Meanwhile my head was full of plans. I had even gathered a handful of writers' numbers for a group chat that was supposed to start the next day. Then I wrote the line: it's the same story all over again. I whip myself, and then I procrastinate. I knew exactly how to fix my finances. Consistent work, nothing more clever than that. And still I'd found a new way to avoid it. Telling myself off was the favourite one. My fix that evening was to finish the day and promise to stick to my routine "until I kill the black cat". I still have no idea what that meant.
Self-punishment feels like effort, and mostly it just delays the work and makes starting heavier.
What to do with this
Try it tonight at the fridge, or at the phone, or wherever your own argument happens.
Name the voice. When you catch the back-and-forth, say to yourself: that's manas doing its job. Don't argue with it. It's meant to waver.
Ask the charioteer. Then ask one question: what does buddhi say? Skip what you want. What do you actually know? Usually buddhi has already answered. You're not hungry. It's late. You know this.
Hand over the reins. Do what buddhi says, once, and notice that nothing terrible happens. Each time the charioteer takes the reins, the horses learn who's driving.
Leave ahankara out of it. Whatever you did, don't let it become a sentence about who you are. It was rice. It was a Tuesday.
The Gita's advice for the whole thing is one line: lift yourself by yourself (6.5). I used to read that as a demand for willpower. Now I read it as a description of the chariot. The higher part lifts the lower. Buddhi takes the reins from manas. That's all the lifting is.
Tomorrow: why you replay conversations at night, and the five ways a thought can move.
Where to read more
The Sivananda-tradition books behind today's piece:
Mind: Its Mysteries and Control, Swami Sivananda (the fourfold mind; control of the senses)
Katha Upanishad, chapter one, third section
Bhagavad Gita, 3.42 and 6.5
If this helped, forward it to one person who argues with their fridge. And if you'd like somewhere to think out loud, an Explorative Letter is a pen friend who writes back.
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