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In a magazine I read an article by Dr. Ben Carson, Director of the Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins Children’ Center. He described the incredible complexity and power of the human brain. He said, “one characteristic of the brain in particular makes us essential human and distinguishes our brains from those of animals: the presence of very large frontal lobes. They enable us to engage in rational thought- processing, to extract information from the past and the present, analyze it and use our conclusions to project a course of future action.” He also said that human brain is simply a mechanical component of an entity of greater beauty and power: the mind. Dr. Carson believes that the billions of neurons and hundreds of billions of interconnections in our brain give each of us our distinct personality, along with the distinct intellectual and emotional characteristics that make each person unique.
We need to find out in what ways each person is unique. It is a fact that we are all different from each other physically and our intellectual abilities and talents are not exactly the same. These differences, however, do not create any problem. On the contrary variety makes life beautiful and rich. Everything that exists in nature is unique. Each leaf of a tree is unique. In its uniqueness everything that exists in nature is inter-connected and inter-dependent. Life is relationship. Do human beings feel connected with nature and with each other? Psychologically each person thinks that he/she is different and separate from others. This creates enormous problem. If they had felt connected they would not feel lonely, isolated, fearful and uncertain.
Are we different from each other psychologically? There is nothing unique about the way a particular person thinks and acts. The fact is that psychologically, inwardly human beings are the same. All human beings, wherever they are, face the same life of sorrow, pain, grief, anxiety, uncertainty, loneliness, conflict and confusion. Our brains get influenced the same way. Our beliefs may be different but the reason why we believe in something or the other is the same. Culturally the brain may be conditioned in a particular way, but if we set aside this superficial conditioning, we find that our responses to the challenges of life are the same.
Joy of Life
Ben Carson attributed his own academic achievement to the power of the brain and the mind. He said he changed his circumstances of poverty by programming his brain with the kind of information that would guarantee academic success. Is there anything unique about the program that Ben Carson used in order to succeed academically? He did not invent the program. The program was already available. He acquired it through the act of listening. The program was in the nature of thought. His mother, father or teacher told him, “if you pay attention to your studies and if you work hard you will become a doctor or an engineer.” This thought guided his action and projected the future. Thought, that contained hope, enabled him to work hard. This thought had motive, direction and the desire to succeed. It brought into action the power of will that enabled him to concentrate and use the ability of the brain to learn and accumulate knowledge. This way he achieved the results that he had projected.
Any child, whether rich, poor, white, black or brown, who is guided in a similar way, can achieve success in one area or another. One can see that the dominant force behind the program is the “center”, the “me”. The mind is programmed with this thought. The center activates the thought process that creates desire, hope, will and effort. There is nothing unique about this whole program. The question is, is this program necessary to learn a subject? The children have to go through all the travails and struggles involved in this program because they do not have any other option. Dr. Carson had also to overcome all the obstacles and hurdles imposed by poverty.
Academically subjects can be taught by generating interest so the child can learn in freedom and flower in goodness without outside pressure, compulsion, coercion and discipline. Child’s brain need not be programmed to achieve goals set by others. Parents and teachers can help the child express his/her abilities and talents that he/she already has without comparing his/her performance with other children.
Unfortunately the existing system of education is not concerned with the holistic development of the child. Through an elaborate system of reward and punishment, through the process of comparing one child’s performance with other children, through competition and through verbal encouragement child is made to do well in studies with the hope that a person who is well equipped in knowledge can earn his living, live a good life and also be an asset to the society. Although the system produces experts in various fields the fact is that the present system of education also sustains, strengthens and perpetuates self-centeredness and selfishness. This approach to life brings about inequality and injustice in the world. Because of the individualistic approach to life man remains bereft of the joy of life. There are conflicts at all levels of human relationship.
There is certainly a flaw in the existing system of education because it gives importance to personal achievement, personal fulfillment, personal pleasure, personal status, power, position and prestige. Extraordinary importance is given to the “self”, the “ego”. There is no sense of wonder about the human abilities that enable the individual to learn, to sing and to dance. It appears everything is being done by the fictitious entity called the “I”. There is no celebration of life. There is only celebration of personal success.
Dr. Carson did not mention the extraordinary human abilities that are not the product of thought. Human beings have the power of pure and objective observation that enables them to see things as they actually are both inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly our thought process has created lot of contradictions, confusion and ignorance. Clarity of perception awakens intelligence that clears the mess that thought has created. With intelligence come love, compassion, affection and care.
Human beings are also endowed with the sense of wonder. Everything that exists on this beautiful planet should create in the mind a sense of wonder and amazement. We can feel joy that is unconditional and without a cause. Without all these life has very little meaning. Human beings also have the urge to find out if there is something sacred in life, if there is something beyond matter. This can be called the spiritual dimension of human life. Unfortunately the system of education gives very little importance to these abilities that make us human. The system is concerned only with lopsided development of human personality.
A person who is really concerned with the existing human situation must ask, why human beings all over the world have not been able to create a sane and healthy society despite immense capabilities of the brain, despite unbounded intellectual potential and the amazing power of the mind? Unfortunately vast majority of the children who are raised in poverty continue to live in misery. They are not as lucky as Dr. Carson either because their brains are programmed differently or their circumstances do not allow them even to go to school. Even those who struggled hard to overcome all the obstacles and hurdles imposed by poverty join the club of educated elite and do not care much about the degradation through which they passed. They feel that there is nothing that they can do about it. Even if there is some concern their response is very superficial and does not take care of the complexity of the problem.
Dr. Carson did not talk about the psychological structure of human consciousness which has become an integral part of the brain and mind and which is responsible for so much mess and misery in the world. The existing system of education does not pay attention to the numerous problems created by human greed, jealousy, anger, hate and violence. Human beings try to overcome these problems by using the same thought process that caused the problems in the first place. There is no effort to understand the thought process.
At the core of the psychological structure, that includes ideas, opinions, prejudices, likes and dislikes etc, is the idea of the “me”, the “self”. Human brain is conditioned with the idea that “I am something”, “I am different from you” or “I am separate from you”. As the child grows up he picks up so many thoughts, ideas and beliefs that support and enhance the inherited conditioning. The brain can be influenced to think one way or another. It can be programmed with so many different ideas, beliefs and ideologies. The brain contains all the accumulated knowledge, experience and memory. There is the process of thought, the nature of thought and the content of thought but there is no permanent entity called the “I” sitting in the brain. To think in terms of the “me” and “you” is a serious error.
Love cannot exist as long as there is this sense of the “me”, the “self”. A mind that is self-concerned with its own ambition, greed and fear has no capacity to love. Only a profound understanding of the self can bring about inward revolution. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.
Chemically we are all made of the same molecules. But psychologically we are different. Some are wise, some are otherwise. We all think but the quality of our thinking depends on our psychological state. Some create beauty and happiness around themselves, some create violence and sorrow.
Our bodies are separate in space though the space may be one. We live in thinking most of the time. This thinking is responsible for the separateness we feel. The centre called ‘I’ is created by thinking.
Oneness is the concept we have learnt from reading religious-spiritual books. It is easy to write about such concepts but difficult to live in the daily life. We can only be aware of our separateness in thinking. When thinking stops, there is no ‘I’ to report about the state.
Harshad Parekh
Thinking is responsible for the separateness we feel. The center called “I” is created by thinking. Around this notion of the “I” thinking has created a very complex psychological structure in the form of memory, knowledge and experience. Thinking arises out of the content of consciousness to protect and safeguard the “I” and in this process more experience gets recorded. This whole mode of operation of thought is common to all human beings.
We are conditioned by the climate we live in and the food we eat, by the culture in which we live and by the education. So many influences pouring in from different directions shape the mind. Obviously this conditioning creates differences. But the nature of thought and the framework within which it operates determine the state of our mind. Superficial conditioning changes when there is transformation in the deeper conditioning.
Each person maintains separateness by creating in his mind an image about himself that says “I am something’. A person may have an image that says “I am an intelligent and a wise person” or I am a good person.” Each person also has images about other people. These images are formed on the basis of likes and dislikes and on the basis of self-interest. A person gets defined by a brief description. People get classified into different categories.
The “self”, the ‘ego’ is very complex. It is made up of opposing qualities and it is a bundle of contradictions. It is in a state of flux. There is a living, dynamic movement taking place in the field of consciousness. Is it wise to characterize people and say this person is wise and that person is unwise? Can the ‘self’, the “ego” that is born out of ignorance ever be wise? The fact is that the person himself often changes views about himself. Sometimes he may feel that he is a very wise person and at other time he may call himself stupid. A person may feel happy in one moment, in the next moment he feels miserable. Why do we formulate views, opinions and prejudices about people? This question needs careful scrutiny.
Yes the things you wrote sound right to me but what keeps us from change? What is it that compels one to follow the world? Is it what we want or our perception. If it is perception what must happen to change that?