MIND AND BODY Biologically speaking, what we call mind or mental activity is the product of the brain or rather is the function of the brain.
We know that the heart can pulsate even when separated from the body, but we cannot conceive of the brain functioning without the body because the function of the brain is to receive impressions from the rest of the body through the nerves and the special senses of sight, hearing and touch as well as the other senses.
The brain not only needs the functioning of the rest of the body to keep its tissues alive, but it needs the rest of the body to bring to it impressions of the outer world. What the brain does with these outer world impressions and also with the impressions it receives from its own body is to perceive, reason, judge, memorize, forget, believe, disbelieve, will or reject, act and direct.
The brain is the director and controller of the body's activity and its relation with the outside world and with the Cosmos itself. The mind, or rather the brain, as can be seen, depends on the body for its functioning. The body depends on the environment for bringing sensations to the brain. The immediate environment depends on the cosmos or universe.
The brain cannot sustain itself unless nourished by a living, functioning body; the body cannot keep alive unless sustained by a favorable earthly environment; the earthly or worldly environment, as we know it, cannot sustain itself unless it is maintained in proper relationship with the rest of the heavenly bodies.
Just as we cannot overlook the relation. ship between body and mind, we also cannot separate our mind from its relationship to the universe and its ultimate Power, the Creator of the Universe.
Because, as I said in the first sentence of this topic, "biologically" it is explainable how the brain depends on the body for its functioning, but how the human brain really performs the function it does cannot be explained, any more than fife itself or the ultimate force of the split atom can be explained.
For the ultimate explanations we must resort to the ultimate conception uppermost in the human mind of an ultimate Power and an ultimate Will of which we are a part. However, leaving the ultimate mystery of our mind, soul and the rest of Creation to the continued contemplation of future generations, we can try to discover the manner of our mind's working and how to direct and control it so far as we are able.
Even the behaviorists admit that we do not arrive into this world with an entirely blank mind and that as we first open our eyes on this puzzling world we already possess the instincts of self-preservation and self-perpetuation; and soon we also know the emotions of fear, anger and love; and of course, we are already able to perform reflexly some such fancy tricks as crying, suckling, moving our limbs and moving the contents of the bowel and bladder, coughing and hiccuping.
With all that, we are a flexible, pliable, elastic and plastic mass. We can be molded into a thinking, feeling, loving and aspiring individual providing that chance is given to us and providing that we stay pliable, elastic and adjustable providing also that we keep loose and free from our primitive fear, greed and anger by concentrating on thinking and feeling righteously and aspiring to higher and nobler goals.
The emotions of fear, greed and anger that accompany the primitive instincts of self-preservation and reproduction must be superseded by the higher aims for which the human mind was chosen.
When this transformation is accomplished by parents, teachers and by the individual himself, he may be certain to have his mind free from all the obsessions and phobias which are the causes of neuroses and mental ailments.
We know that the heart can pulsate even when separated from the body, but we cannot conceive of the brain functioning without the body because the function of the brain is to receive impressions from the rest of the body through the nerves and the special senses of sight, hearing and touch as well as the other senses.
The brain is the director and controller of the body's activity and its relation with the outside world and with the Cosmos itself. The mind, or rather the brain, as can be seen, depends on the body for its functioning. The body depends on the environment for bringing sensations to the brain. The immediate environment depends on the cosmos or universe.
The brain cannot sustain itself unless nourished by a living, functioning body; the body cannot keep alive unless sustained by a favorable earthly environment; the earthly or worldly environment, as we know it, cannot sustain itself unless it is maintained in proper relationship with the rest of the heavenly bodies.
Just as we cannot overlook the relation. ship between body and mind, we also cannot separate our mind from its relationship to the universe and its ultimate Power, the Creator of the Universe.
Because, as I said in the first sentence of this topic, "biologically" it is explainable how the brain depends on the body for its functioning, but how the human brain really performs the function it does cannot be explained, any more than fife itself or the ultimate force of the split atom can be explained.
For the ultimate explanations we must resort to the ultimate conception uppermost in the human mind of an ultimate Power and an ultimate Will of which we are a part. However, leaving the ultimate mystery of our mind, soul and the rest of Creation to the continued contemplation of future generations, we can try to discover the manner of our mind's working and how to direct and control it so far as we are able.
Even the behaviorists admit that we do not arrive into this world with an entirely blank mind and that as we first open our eyes on this puzzling world we already possess the instincts of self-preservation and self-perpetuation; and soon we also know the emotions of fear, anger and love; and of course, we are already able to perform reflexly some such fancy tricks as crying, suckling, moving our limbs and moving the contents of the bowel and bladder, coughing and hiccuping.
With all that, we are a flexible, pliable, elastic and plastic mass. We can be molded into a thinking, feeling, loving and aspiring individual providing that chance is given to us and providing that we stay pliable, elastic and adjustable providing also that we keep loose and free from our primitive fear, greed and anger by concentrating on thinking and feeling righteously and aspiring to higher and nobler goals.
The emotions of fear, greed and anger that accompany the primitive instincts of self-preservation and reproduction must be superseded by the higher aims for which the human mind was chosen.
When this transformation is accomplished by parents, teachers and by the individual himself, he may be certain to have his mind free from all the obsessions and phobias which are the causes of neuroses and mental ailments.
Iframe sync
0 komentar:
Post a Comment