When you look at a computer, what you see is the monitor or the computer screen, the keyboard and the box which is called the CPU. Some of us are aware of the circuitry within consisting of the silicon chips and other electronic devices. These physical components of the computer which you can see with your eyes are called the computer hardware. What we do not see and most of us are not even aware of is the software or the computer programs which run inside to give it the real power of this miraculous device. What gives computer its ‘life’ is the software.
Drawing an analogy with the digital world, human beings too are made up of two basic constituents – hardware and software. Hardware is the physical matter of which our body is built, or our physical being. The software is the bundle of thoughts, emotions, feelings, and complexes. The hardware is more or less the same for everybody, but the software is different for every human being. What is different is the thinking – the thoughts that arise for everyone every moment. The thoughts, feelings and emotions are different and they depend on our background, life history and experiences. Since no two persons can have exactly the same experiences and surroundings in life, no two softwares are ever equal. It means that every man broadly has the same constitution physically, but is mentally different from the other.
The software is dependent on our past history and experience. At the same time, the thoughts that come to our mind are in turn dependent on the software. The software is different because the experiences in everybody’s lives are different. Some experiences in our childhood create some fears and complexes in our mind. As the experiences is different and software decides today’s thoughts, the thoughts which come to two different persons on the same stimulation or in similar situations are different. For example, if a person has inferiority complex about some particular personal attributes, a remark from another person related to that attribute will immediately give rise to a thought that it was an attack on his person, whereas the same remark may not give rise to the same reaction or thoughts for another person who has no complex. The reactions of the two persons will be different because of the different thoughts. So it is the thoughts which are sparked off at the instant of a provocation or action that make the reactions different. I am sure the cricketing greats like Gavaskar and Tendulkar, while hitting a shot do not think of anything but only concentrate on the ball – and that makes them great players.
