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| 16.6 |
The human mind |
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"What am I?" |
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"Why am I, I?" |
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| While medical science has accomplished fantastic feats of research and study in to unlocking the mysteries of the human body in terms of what is it made of and how does it function, when it comes to the human mind- there remain significant gaps. | ||
| The two most common questions asked regarding our mind apart from "what is it?" is "what am I?" and "why am I, I?". By the words "what am I?" we mean, the internal question that begs the question of the true identity of I- the self. | ||
| Serious attempts to provide answers to both of these primary questions did not emerge until the late 19th Century with the pioneering work of Dr Sigmund Freud. It was his ingenious concept of considering the human mind not as one self identity, but os a series of sometimes competing and complementing identities- the id, the ego, the superego. As a result of this work, practitioners have found over the past hundred years that such an approach provides powerful insight into a host of human behaviour, mental illnesses and motivations. | ||
| 16.6.1 | The missing elements to the answers to the questions | |
| While Freud and other pioneers of the science of psychology have provided wonderful models to extend our understanding of self, on personal reflection the answer is harder to confirm within ourselves. When we seek to inwardly reflect- to consider the ego, or the superego or the id, their location and their current state are difficult to capture. It is as if, when we immerse within ourselves, all that is sure and concrete changes like quicksilver. As soon as we grasp an insight, another element falls away or changes. | ||
| The journey to discover self takes more than a few summaries- some believe it takes a lifetime to discover who and what we are. | ||
| In this chapter we will introduce some fundamental concepts that are then expanded within CHAPTER 18- HUMAN AWARENESS. | ||
| 16.6.2 | Moving beyond self knowledge | |
| If the question of self knowledge is hard enough, then the second question- "why am I, I?" is even more complex. It is one thing to know the identity of thyself- to know oneself, it is another to ponder the implications of the question why? | ||
| Why do we exist when others do not? why are we human and not some other animal? why are we alive when so many people we know are not? why am I, I? It is a thought provoking and seemingly unanswerable question. So difficult in fact that many religions and philosophies make no attempt to provide a suitably cohesive model and instead produce the phrase "only God knows." | ||
| 16.6.3 | The quicksilver nature to these questions | |
| If we have ever searched for answers to these questions, or even if we have considered these questions at all, you probably know that it is a frustrating subject to pin down. Just as you think you have an answer to a part of your personality or who you really are, the "you" shifts again and another whole can of worms seems to open. This can be evidenced by the journey of self knowledge and the stumbling across seeming astonishing flaws and dark thoughts. | ||
| As human beings interacting in modern society, most of us keep these thoughts to ourselves, under a virtual kind of lock and key. For a few, the reverse is the case and they relish in their enjoyment in playing out their darkest desires as sadists, serial killers. | ||
| 16.6.4 | The complex and seemingly endless layers of required understanding to answers to these questions | |
| Yet it is not just the quicksilver nature to answers to the questions of why am I, I? and what am I? It is also the seeming endless layers of complexity and implication. | ||
| Many of the greatest minds who have sought to unlock the definitive answers to these simplest of questions "what am I?" and "why am I, I?" have gone completely mad. Their intense self reflection has caused their daily routines to collapse, people around them to grow frustrated at their remoteness and inconsistency and for their health to suffer. Their minds have simply fragmented to a point until it could not operate at a cohesive whole as expected in modern society. | ||
| Considering the complexity and volume of knowledge on the subject of what it means to be human, it might be understandable that many great philosophers have gone crazy. yet is this the only fate of the search for self knowledge? Is there some hope we can achieve depth and detail- not just spiritual, but physical and mental at the same time? | ||
| 16.6.5 | The assistance of UCA | |
| Ancient wisdom from the East and ancient Western cultures have understood the power of meditation and prayer to extend understanding of self for many thousands of years. Yet in the areas of physical and mental knowledge, the cohesion between clearing the mind of all thoughts and the attempt to rearrange consciousness into a single clear, peaceful, constant thought has seemed impossible. | ||
| Now UCA provides a solution, by structuring answers to the physical self, the mind self and answers to these questions structured so that the answers are "in context". In other words, there can be no confusion as to the answers, their context and their implications for further questions and answers associated with "what makes me human." | ||
| 16.6.5 | The book of SELF | |
| The complete 23 chapters of Self, is dedicated to providing tremendous detail and context to the questions "what am I?" and "why am I, I?" in addition to chapter 18 and 19 of UCA. | ||
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Copyright © 2010 UCADIA. All rights reserved. |
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