Note: Wherever ‘he’, ‘I’, ‘we’ or similar pronouns are used, I am referring to the equivalent conscious mind.
“Some consider the body to be miraculous, some consider the soul to be miraculous, some consider the conscious mind to be miraculous, and some consider the unconscious mind to be miraculous, while others, even after considering all four, fail to understand the miracle.”
Again and again, I am dragged into the subject of the conscious and the unconscious. Yesterday, it was the book ‘Blink’. We go deep inside our minds, and find a vast array of knowledge that can be put to use, but we are unable to, because we don’t know how to tap it.
Most of us are inclined highly towards logical and analytical methodologies. [I would prefer a term “rationalist”.] This is the conscious, the perceptible part of our mind. There is another, less perceptible side, which stores infinitely more than the conscious, but is not always at our bidding. This is the unconscious mind. It sends out signals long before we realize what is happening.
Psychologists have always preferred to examine the unconscious mind of a patient to reveal the reasons behind the subject’s conditions. There may be several things affecting the patient but he himself may not be aware of it. Letting it out is crucial for a normal condition.
People have taken far-reaching decisions that have proved to be correct or appropriate in the matter of a few seconds or with seemingly insufficient data in hand. This is possible because we tap into our unconscious and extract whatever we need. In fact, most of us must have done this at some point of the time or other. Scientists have credited their theories to dreams (Kekule’s benzene ring) and chance incidents (Newton’s apple).
Yet, it is dangerous to depend solely on the unconscious. For, this part of our mind cannot differentiate between a real and an imagined experience. Our unconscious simply stores whatever has been fed to it, either in the immediate or in the distant past. The best of results are obtained, when we put together our conscious and our unconscious together and make sense of the world.
It is not that analytical solutions are wrong. Our knowledge of physics and metaphysics is imperfect. There are theories of which we may not be in the know, even though they are staring into our faces (the ‘why didn’t I think of this before’ syndrome). So we must not neglect the signals coming from deep within (the gut feeling, a hunch, or whatever we name it).
“Some consider the body to be miraculous, some consider the soul to be miraculous, some consider the conscious mind to be miraculous, and some consider the unconscious mind to be miraculous, while others, even after considering all four, fail to understand the miracle.”
Again and again, I am dragged into the subject of the conscious and the unconscious. Yesterday, it was the book ‘Blink’. We go deep inside our minds, and find a vast array of knowledge that can be put to use, but we are unable to, because we don’t know how to tap it.
Most of us are inclined highly towards logical and analytical methodologies. [I would prefer a term “rationalist”.] This is the conscious, the perceptible part of our mind. There is another, less perceptible side, which stores infinitely more than the conscious, but is not always at our bidding. This is the unconscious mind. It sends out signals long before we realize what is happening.
Psychologists have always preferred to examine the unconscious mind of a patient to reveal the reasons behind the subject’s conditions. There may be several things affecting the patient but he himself may not be aware of it. Letting it out is crucial for a normal condition.
People have taken far-reaching decisions that have proved to be correct or appropriate in the matter of a few seconds or with seemingly insufficient data in hand. This is possible because we tap into our unconscious and extract whatever we need. In fact, most of us must have done this at some point of the time or other. Scientists have credited their theories to dreams (Kekule’s benzene ring) and chance incidents (Newton’s apple).
Yet, it is dangerous to depend solely on the unconscious. For, this part of our mind cannot differentiate between a real and an imagined experience. Our unconscious simply stores whatever has been fed to it, either in the immediate or in the distant past. The best of results are obtained, when we put together our conscious and our unconscious together and make sense of the world.
It is not that analytical solutions are wrong. Our knowledge of physics and metaphysics is imperfect. There are theories of which we may not be in the know, even though they are staring into our faces (the ‘why didn’t I think of this before’ syndrome). So we must not neglect the signals coming from deep within (the gut feeling, a hunch, or whatever we name it).
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