Changes

We are habituated to what occurs as it occurs; it is simply a matter of habit, for from the first breath we drew upon earth we have been accustomed to see things in this way, and so it seems quite ordinary to us, because it occurs in this way. But if we could manage to get out of this habit, if we could see things from another point of view, we would immediately be able to feel that kind of impression of the miraculous, because we would no longer see the logic of events with the habitual sense. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/23-november-1955#p21</ref> <center>~</center> One lives by a kind of habit which is barely half-conscious—one lives, does not even objectify what one does, why one does it, how one does it. One does it by habit. All those who are born in a certain environment, a certain country, automatically take the habits of that environment, not only material habits but habits of thought, habits of feeling and habits of acting. They do it without watching themselves doing it, quite naturally, and if someone points this out to them they are astonished. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p11</ref> <center>~</center> ... if you travel round the world, in every country people have different habits of sleeping, habits of eating, habits of dressing, habits for making their toilet. And quite naturally, they will tell you that the things they use are indispensable. But if you change countries you will realise that all these things are of no use for those people, because they make use of other things which are just as useful for them and seem to them indispensable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/16-february-1955#p20</ref> <center>~</center> ..."why do you act in this way and not that?"… simply because you were born in certain conditions and it is the habit to be like that in these conditions. Otherwise, if you had been born in another age and other conditions, you would act altogether differently without even realising the difference, it would appear absolutely natural to you…when… you. …For instance—a very, very small instance—in most Western countries and even in some Eastern ones, people sew like this, from right to left; in Japan they sew from left to right. Well, it seems quite natural to you to sew from right to left, doesn't it? That is how you have been taught and you don't think about it, you sew in that way. If you go to Japan and they see you sewing, it makes them laugh, for they are in the habit of sewing differently. It is the same thing with writing. You write like this, from left to right, but there are people who write from top to bottom, and others who write from right to left, and they do it most naturally. I am not speaking of those who have studied, reflected, compared ways of writing, I am not speaking of more or less learned people, no, I am speaking of quite ordinary people, and above all of children who do what is done around them, quite spontaneously and without questioning. But then, when by chance or circumstance they are faced with a different way, it is a tremendous revelation … for them that things can be done in a different way… way from theirs.  And these are quite simple things, I mean the ones which strike you, but this is true down to the smallest detail. You do things in this way because in the place and environment in which you live they are done in this way. And you do not watch yourself doing them. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p16,p17</ref> <center>~</center> Inevitably, parents have a particular formation, they are particularly healthy or unhealthy; even taking things at their best, they have a heap of atavisms, habits, formations in the subconscious and even in the unconscious, which come from their own birth, the environment they have lived in, their own life; and even if they are remarkable people, they have a large number of things which are quite opposed to the true psychic life―even the best of them, even the most conscious. And besides, there is all that is going to happen. Even if one takes a great deal of trouble over the education of one's children, they will come in contact with all sorts of people who will have an influence over them, especially when they are very young, and these influences enter the subconscious, one has to struggle against them later on. I say: even in the best cases, because of the way in which the body is formed at present, you have to face innumerable difficulties which come more or less from the subconscious, but rise to the surface and against which you have to struggle before you can become completely free and develop normally. <ref>
http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/27-june-1956#p24</ref>