Friday, 31 July 2015

On Mind from Life Divine

Mind is not a faculty of knowledge nor an instrument of omniscience; it is a faculty for the seeking of knowledge, for expressing as much as it can gain of it in certain forms of a relative thought and for using it towards certain capacities of action. Even when it finds, it does not possess; it only keeps a certain fund of current coin of Truth-not Truth itself- in the bank of Memory to draw upon according to its needs.

Mind is that which does not know, which tries to know and which never knows except as a glass darkly. It is the power which interprets truth of universal existence for the practical uses of a certain order of things ; it is not the power which knows and guides that existence and therefore it can not be the power which created or manifested it.

Thursday, 30 July 2015

Integral Psychology: Western & Indian Perspective

In the Western intellectual/ philosophical /tradition, the term person refers to human beings as entities who have certain rights and duties, whereas  the term personality refers to individuality.'Self' and 'ego' are two other terms,more or less equivalent, referring to a particular person distinct from others. In the Indian context, the nature of the self, and the nature of reality as a whole are the two central topics of enquiry in the Upanisads.
The first and most important point to note is that individuals are located at different levels and points in the gradient of consciousness. A vaster universe unfolds when we become tuned to the wider range of energies and forces, which are only accessible when we turn inward.
The first step in accessing the inner mind is silencing of the outer- we have to get out of the feverish mental activity that we are used to.'As a matter of fact, step by step we discover that that there is no necessity to think: something behind, or above, does all the work, with a precision and infallibility that grow as we get into the habit of referring to it; there is no necessity to remember, since the exact indication comes forth just when it is needed; no necessity to plan our action, since a secret spring sets it in motion without our willing it or thinking about it, and makes us do exactly what we have to do, with a wisdom and a foresight of which our ( outer) mind, forever shortsighted, is quite incapable'

Suneet Varma .