Psychology: Gaining consciousness
Psychology began as the study of consciousness, and then turned to the study of observable behaviour. Today, it is the science of both: behaviour and mental processes. Thus, what psychology lost once (consciousness), it is gaining again with renewed vigour . Actually, in the beginning, the difficulty of studying consciousness scientifically led many psychologists to turn to direct observations of behaviour. But, during 1960, advances in neuroscience made it possible to relate brain activity to various mental states – waking, sleeping, and dreaming. As a result, today, many psychologists are affirming the importance of mental processes and are looking afresh into the power of infinite mind.
Human mind: Conscious, subconscious or unconscious?
The nature of human mind is very difficult to understand because it is very subtle as well as hidden. Therefore, it has been defined in different ways by different thinkers. Since Mr. Freud originally defined the structure of personality in terms of the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious, we psychologists have also been talking about the same topographical model all these years - ‘conscious’ as the part of the psyche that includes material of which one is fully aware; subconscious as the part of the psyche that includes material which is not at the moment within one’s awareness, but which can readily be brought to the conscious mind; and ‘unconscious’ as the part of the psyche that includes material not within one’s awareness and which cannot readily be brought to the conscious mind .
Now, the question is: By which name should this one mind be known? Those who are working in the field of information processing say that conscious awareness is just the tip of the iceberg. It simply enables us to exert voluntary control and to communicate our mental states to others . Beneath the surface, actually, subconscious information processing occurs simultaneously on many parallel tracks. When we look at a flying bird, we are consciously aware of the result of our cognitive processing but not of our sub-processing of the bird’s colour, form, movement, distance and identity. Therefore, from the functional viewpoint, it is the subconscious mind (including unconscious) which takes care of all the processes that are occurring out of conscious awareness. This one mind thus should be known as the subconscious mind.
Conclusion: Superconscious mind as the soul’s mind
Now, the question is: What should we conclude from all these? We should not get caught by the words ‘conscious’, ‘subconscious’ and ‘unconscious’. They are just to describe different functions of the same mind. There are conscious and considered thought, subconscious having recallable memories, habits, and old feelings, and unconscious having forgotten instincts, conditioning and collective or universal experiences. Each of these is accessible to us in some way because they communicate with each other in their own way. We should, therefore, try to develop such a mind which can perceive and judge things rightly making use of all the information – conscious, subconscious or unconscious. “The richest soil, the soil of the human mind, lies fallow. If it could be tilled well it would yield golden crops, but since it lies fallow, it yields brambles and thorny bushes and weeds”. That means, if there are wrong tendencies lying within, they have to be weakened by constant effort. Since the subconscious and the unconscious mind work mechanically, such change is possible only by the conscious mind through its special power of self-determination. Thus, for the development of the mind, we have to feed the mind with rich food, nourish it regularly, strengthen it, and enrich it. As a result, we can have good understanding, peace, wisdom and joy. In this sense, our mind, illuminated by the Self, becomes the Superconscious mind.
Human behaviour: Physical, mental or spiritual?
American psychologists defined psychology as “the science of observable behaviour.” For them, behaviour was an overt activity of the organism. Since sensation, feeling and emotion (or any other subjective matters) were not observable, they could not be the subject matter of psychology. As a result, many of the studies in psychology remained restricted to overt activities of an organism for many-many years in the hands of behaviourists. But, today, we are not agreeing with the behaviourists and are studying mental processes in psychology as well. Not only that, we also try to explain every human behaviour in terms of ‘mind’ involved in it. Since mind instructs the body to behave in a definite way, every behaviour is having minimum two aspects – the physical, and the mental. In order to have an effective behaviour, we try to maintain a balance between the two. In this process, the effective behaviour, in which mind and body work together without dominating upon each other, becomes “spiritual” in nature due to. We can take the example of understanding love in a laboratory. Is it not a fact that by putting love under scientific scrutiny, we are destroying its mystery? In reality, love includes affection and anger, excitement and boredom, stability and change, bond and freedom, etc. This, therefore, cannot be known by any scientific method. As a result, those researchers, who have tried to know about it by using all sorts of sophisticated instruments, have found it to be a ‘triangle’ of which the three sides represent physiological, psychological, and anthropological factors. But, outside the laboratory, the “true love” has emerged as a ‘circle’ which combines all the three kinds of factors into one. This organization as a whole is known as “spiritual love” in which all the parts are merged with each other. This is such a nice blend that no factor is dominating upon anyone. This kind of “true love” cannot be analyzed but can be experienced. Like this, every human behaviour needs to be effective (spiritual) and needs to be understood.
There is a great saying, " UNLEASH THE POWER OF MIND TO ITS FULLEST TO DISCOVER THE ABUNDANCE OF LIFE"
