THE MYSTERIOUS MIND AND ITS CONTROL : 4 & 5. Sri Swami Chidananda.

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Sunday, November 06, 2022. 08:00. 

4.ORIGIN OF WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY :

5.CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MIND :

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4.ORIGIN OF WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY :

Western psychologists have studied the mind in terms of characteristic action and behavior. This approach is due to the way in which their attention was first drawn towards the mind. Western psychologists were primarily doctors. They started to work in the hospitals where treatment of various ailments and diseases was being studied and improved upon, but they found that certain diseases could not be cured by all the medical and therapeutic measures and, in this way they stumbled across the fact that the causes behind many of the diseases were mental. From this discovery, they proceeded to investigate the mental functions and found that there were certain clear connections between the functions of the mind and those of the body. Right from the start, the investigations of these Western psychologists centred around sick people – people whose illness defied medical treatment. We could say, therefore, without exaggeration that the study of the mind in the West originated in a sort of morbid psychology. The diseased mind was the focus of the psychologists’ attention.

Out of their observations was evolved a great science, but in its development, the scientists were at a great disadvantage, for they were unable to study the mind as it was. They observed the diseased mind, rather than the mind of the perfectly healthy individual; they investigated the peculiar and the abnormal mind, rather than the representative person. In the East on the other hand, the great Masters studied the universal man. The mind as an inner center of life, and in its universal aspect, was the object of their study, and not mind in “this condition” or “that condition”, ill or well. The Eastern Masters also considered both matter and spirit and carefully correlated their facts. They delved into themselves, and through introspection and meditation, uncovered amazing facts about this inner instrument we call mind. Theirs was a pure subjective study. In meditation, the Eastern masters reached the very heart of their subject matter and there they had the Truth revealed to them. Thus they have authoritatively declared what has to be known about the mind. In this manner, the Eastern origin of this science was so totally different from the origin of Western psychology.


5.CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MIND :

1.The prime characteristic of the mind is externalization. The sages found that the flow of the mind was outward and not centred inward. This is the law of life: everything spreads outward from its center. But there is a force which is trying to draw everything back towards their source and center. When the externalizing force is overcome, man is able to release that re-integrating force, and in the way finds his Center. When this is done, his search is over. Life is mastered.

2.The second characteristic of the mind is constancy of activity. Never for a single moment is the mind still.

3.The third characteristic is wideness in the range of its activity. Not only in one direction is it active, but in many direction. Now it is here, now it is there and now it is everywhere.

Thus, externalized, constantly active, and flitting from one thing to another, the mind is very difficult to control. To understand it requires much subtlety. It cannot be seen; it cannot be put into a test tube and analyzed; it cannot be looked at under a microscope. Although man can do scarcely anything about the mind, the mind can do practically everything about the man! It is so subtle, so abstract, and so totally internal that mind finds it very difficult to grasp it. One moment it can expand into the thought of the Pacific Ocean or outer space, and then it can diminish to the thought of a mustard seed or a pinpoint or an atom, and the next, with its center seemingly within the confines of the human brain, as it were, the mind can think about everything up to infinity. With one leap, it can encompass the whole stellar, lunar and solar systems, and with the same capacity, it can think about something as small as a grain of sand. What a mysterious mind!

The mind assumes three recurring states or conditions in every human being. Your consciousness functions through one or the other of these states (referred to as ‘Avastha’ in Vedantic philosophy). It may be external or it may be internal and, if it is internal, it may be either partially withdrawn or totally withdrawn. The greater part of the time the mind is external and you call this state the “waking state”. When you retire to sleep at night, the mind is partially withdrawn in relation to the external universe, but is still vigorously active within. This you vaguely know as the “dream state”. Here the mind creates a world similar to what you perceive and experience during the first-mentioned state, viz., your waking consciousness.

When the mind goes beyond this dream consciousness, it sinks still deeper, and becomes totally withdrawn and absorbed. This third state that you experience daily is “sound sleep”. Little is known about this state and you hardly even think about it, but actually it is the most significant and vitally important state, for it holds the real clue to your innermost true “Self” right at the very core of your being. In this state of total withdrawal of the mind – a state of sound, dreamless, deep sleep – you come closest to your true, essential inner nature. In this state, the mind is closest to its source and center, but at the same time it is so totally obliterated that even its innermost and primal “I” thought stands suspended in its function. The barest indication of its latent presence is the unmistakable feeling of “I rested well” or “I slept soundly” of the individual upon emerging into waking consciousness.

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NEXT-6. THE PRIMAL ROOT THOUGHT :

To be continued


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