That is a challenge, an external challenge as it were, that causes a ripple
on the surface.
The secondary fluctuations or waves are different. Those are the
ones that rise up from the bottom of the lake. The bottom of a lake is
covered in sand and so, if in life you experience a sufficient number of
disappointments, the ripple on the surface creates a wave that goes
down to the bottom, and imperceptibly that ripple creates a little bank
in the sand, so there is a little mound of disappointment. As a result
you will find yourself frequently disappointed or sad as this mound at
the bottom sends off secondary fluctuations or waves.
Let us look at another common example. If you constantly find
yourself being irritable, annoyed by something-your wife, your chil
dren, your parents, or anything at all-a sufficient number of irritable
reactions will create, imperceptibly, not in one time only, a little mound
of irritability at the bottom of the lake of consciousness, and that will
eventually make you what we call an irritable person, an angry person.
If you have smoked since you were sixteen, every time you pick up a
cigarette in the day you are also brainwashing yourself. "In this situa
tion I pick up a cigarette" sends a little ripple down through con
sciousness that adds to the "take a cigarette" mound. That's why
cigarettes are more difficult than almost anything else to give up. Aside
from their physical cravings, we create mental cravings because the
habit is very repetitive. The habit of smoking puts itself into every sit
uation. The triggers to that situation are so many that many smokers
still sometimes want to smoke even years after they have stopped be
cause the mound is still there.
When you have an anger, irritability, or disappointment mound,
the conditioned reflex works like this: Suppose you're irritable with
your parents, and your mother comes into the room. She might only
say "Dinner's ready," but the irritability reflex is ready to spring up.
She has said nothing to irritate you, but the irritability mound means
that any incoming stimulus connected to her sends a wave down
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