Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "psychology"
Key to Love
Love - the most beautiful word on this planet. This one word has revolutionized the whole planet in an evolutionary way. Without this none of us might have been born. It is mother nature's magical wand by the touch of which everything turns surreal and captivating.
It is the most important ingredient of human life. That's why the tiniest glance at your dearly beloved can make you experience heaven right here on earth. Or as I have said in my book Love Sutra The Neuroscientific Manual of Love, "who wants Jesus when you can have the warm embrace of the person who is the living embodiment of all your desires".
But, despite all the delightful descriptions of love, why is it so hard to maintain a healthy relationship?
If the mental state of love is so soothing then why do people often fail to maintain a healthy relationship?
The answer lies deep within the neural network of the human brain.
In short the cause of failure in relationships is the perceptual difference between the male and female mind. It is all in the fascinating neurobiology of the human brain.
The point is, the male and female brain constructs a vivid and gender oriented mental universe. Thus, the male mind perceives every situation of daily life from a typically male perspective and expects the female to do the same, while the female brain observes everything in a feminine manner and expects the male to do the same. And from this very gender based perceptual conflict rise all the predicaments of a relationship.
Therefore, the only way to sustain a healthy relationship is to have a basic insight of your own as well as your partner's mental universe.
And the very first thing to know about the male and female mental universe is that the female brain is a highly intuitive emotion engine, while the male brain is an analytical powerhouse.
Through millions of years of evolution, Mother Nature has molded the female brain to thrive over emotions, and the male brain to thrive over competition. From a cursory reading, a man and a woman may seem to be members of the same species. But they are neurologically distinct and unique creatures, who see the world from completely different perspectives.
They think differently, feel differently, get mad differently and even handle problems differently. The male brain is a problem solving machine that uses analytical brain structures to find solutions for basic problems of life, unlike the female brain that uses emotional neural structures to solve problems.
Men are born with uniquely masculine neurological circuits while women are born with uniquely feminine circuits. This is what we call sexual dimorphism in clinical terms. And this dimorphism in brain structure leads to distinctive cognitive and behavioral features in men and women. You can read about these fascinating sexually dimorphic features in my book Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love. In this book I have opened up the entire mental universe of men and women while giving a basic guideline for a healthy relationship.
Let me tell you a little more about the fascinating difference between the male and female mind. For example, the male brain is evolutionarily programmed to think about mating far more than women. And this programming has led men to have sexual thoughts more often throughout the day than the women. Women only have such thoughts four or less times in a day.
Another fascinating feature of the female brain is its retention of memories connected to emotional events in the long run. Women are much better at remembering emotional events of life in the long run than men. And off course, the female brain is a great emotion sensor. It is capable of picking up emotional cues from the facial expressions and other body movements of people. Men are not so good at this, for which women often blame the men to be less sensitive. And here's a little tip for all the ladies out there. If you want to make your partner sense your emotions, you can do so by bursting into tears. That's the only way, the male brain can feel there's something wrong. It is plain biology.
And as for men, I'd like to tell you, your neurology may not be as emotionally sensitive as the women's. But that does not mean you cannot grow the virtue of patience. All that women seek in men, is patience with a little tinge of perseverance. And thanks to the amazing neurological feature known as neuroplasticity, the human brain, male and female alike, can learn and adopt new features in the neural network.
It is all about making efforts from both sides of a relationship. Relationships don't fail due to lack of love. Rather they fail because the partners lose touch with each other's inner selves. They get lost in the storm of confusions and meaninglessness. One way or another they start fighting with each other's biological instincts, that ultimately leads to misery.
You must remember, biological instincts are the driving force or rather guiding force of a species. Everything our ancestors learnt throughout their existence is encoded inside our instinctual blueprint. It is the key to understanding how every single human being is wired. The marvelous interplay of various brain circuits creates the instinctual reality of daily life in both men and women.
Regardless of your gender, if you are conscious about the fact that there lies a complex yet vividly beautiful brain circuit mechanism behind every single impulse of your daily emotions, then you can choose how to react upon each of those impulses. You can thus program your behavioral response in a certain situation for the best possible outcome.
It is the most important ingredient of human life. That's why the tiniest glance at your dearly beloved can make you experience heaven right here on earth. Or as I have said in my book Love Sutra The Neuroscientific Manual of Love, "who wants Jesus when you can have the warm embrace of the person who is the living embodiment of all your desires".
But, despite all the delightful descriptions of love, why is it so hard to maintain a healthy relationship?
If the mental state of love is so soothing then why do people often fail to maintain a healthy relationship?
The answer lies deep within the neural network of the human brain.
In short the cause of failure in relationships is the perceptual difference between the male and female mind. It is all in the fascinating neurobiology of the human brain.
The point is, the male and female brain constructs a vivid and gender oriented mental universe. Thus, the male mind perceives every situation of daily life from a typically male perspective and expects the female to do the same, while the female brain observes everything in a feminine manner and expects the male to do the same. And from this very gender based perceptual conflict rise all the predicaments of a relationship.
Therefore, the only way to sustain a healthy relationship is to have a basic insight of your own as well as your partner's mental universe.
And the very first thing to know about the male and female mental universe is that the female brain is a highly intuitive emotion engine, while the male brain is an analytical powerhouse.
Through millions of years of evolution, Mother Nature has molded the female brain to thrive over emotions, and the male brain to thrive over competition. From a cursory reading, a man and a woman may seem to be members of the same species. But they are neurologically distinct and unique creatures, who see the world from completely different perspectives.
They think differently, feel differently, get mad differently and even handle problems differently. The male brain is a problem solving machine that uses analytical brain structures to find solutions for basic problems of life, unlike the female brain that uses emotional neural structures to solve problems.
Men are born with uniquely masculine neurological circuits while women are born with uniquely feminine circuits. This is what we call sexual dimorphism in clinical terms. And this dimorphism in brain structure leads to distinctive cognitive and behavioral features in men and women. You can read about these fascinating sexually dimorphic features in my book Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love. In this book I have opened up the entire mental universe of men and women while giving a basic guideline for a healthy relationship.
Let me tell you a little more about the fascinating difference between the male and female mind. For example, the male brain is evolutionarily programmed to think about mating far more than women. And this programming has led men to have sexual thoughts more often throughout the day than the women. Women only have such thoughts four or less times in a day.
Another fascinating feature of the female brain is its retention of memories connected to emotional events in the long run. Women are much better at remembering emotional events of life in the long run than men. And off course, the female brain is a great emotion sensor. It is capable of picking up emotional cues from the facial expressions and other body movements of people. Men are not so good at this, for which women often blame the men to be less sensitive. And here's a little tip for all the ladies out there. If you want to make your partner sense your emotions, you can do so by bursting into tears. That's the only way, the male brain can feel there's something wrong. It is plain biology.
And as for men, I'd like to tell you, your neurology may not be as emotionally sensitive as the women's. But that does not mean you cannot grow the virtue of patience. All that women seek in men, is patience with a little tinge of perseverance. And thanks to the amazing neurological feature known as neuroplasticity, the human brain, male and female alike, can learn and adopt new features in the neural network.
It is all about making efforts from both sides of a relationship. Relationships don't fail due to lack of love. Rather they fail because the partners lose touch with each other's inner selves. They get lost in the storm of confusions and meaninglessness. One way or another they start fighting with each other's biological instincts, that ultimately leads to misery.
You must remember, biological instincts are the driving force or rather guiding force of a species. Everything our ancestors learnt throughout their existence is encoded inside our instinctual blueprint. It is the key to understanding how every single human being is wired. The marvelous interplay of various brain circuits creates the instinctual reality of daily life in both men and women.
Regardless of your gender, if you are conscious about the fact that there lies a complex yet vividly beautiful brain circuit mechanism behind every single impulse of your daily emotions, then you can choose how to react upon each of those impulses. You can thus program your behavioral response in a certain situation for the best possible outcome.
Belief and Reality
Have you ever wondered, why do we believe what we believe?
Why some of us humans are religious, some spiritual, some extremists, some agnostics and some atheists?
What is it that makes various human beings perceive different things at different moral, logical and spiritual level?
Are we all merely smart biological devices with various operating platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, Linux and Blackberry?
What makes us so different in terms of beliefs and disbeliefs? And why is it so hard for humans to embrace each other’s beliefs?
And the ultimate question is, does our belief actually allow us to connect with the reality? Does it have any significance in the human biology?
In this brief article we are about to embark on an enlightening journey of belief, biology and philosophy. And in the end we shall discover how imperative it is to sometimes acknowledge each other’s beliefs and accept people the way they are, because one’s beliefs are not merely a matter of ideology or intuitions, rather it is a rudimentary need of the human mind. And for a truly cheerful and productive human life one’s belief should be in perfect harmony with Science & Philosophy.
So, let’s begin with a simple yet quintessential question of human life – what is belief?
Belief is the brain's natural self maintenance mechanism. It enables a person function properly in daily life, without worrying about the true nature of reality. Belief is exclusively a matter of personal domain. It has nothing to do with reality. And conflict occurs when a person tries to impose his or her beliefs onto others.
The human brain is quite selfish. Its first concern is the satisfaction of its owner. The common human brain of the masses doesn't care about the truth of the universe. It doesn't care about scientific enlightenment. It doesn't care about reasoning. The only thing it cares about is survival. And in order to survive it does everything in its capacity to keep a person bound inside a tiny circle of beliefs and fantasies. And every time another person tries to break that circle by refuting the beliefs and talking about Science, the brain kicks into self defense mode. Now it shall do everything to sustain the beliefs and fight every incoming argument with a blind eye. This is because one's beliefs no matter how magical or mystical or unscientific they sound, help the person get through the daily struggles of life.
In short, belief is a common element of human life the purpose of which is self-preservation. Even we scientists often pursue a hunch based on our beliefs. The only difference is that we cannot call that hunch Science, until we actually prove it through rigorous experimentations. There was a time, when Evolution was a hunch or rather a hypothesis in the minds of a few naturalists. Hence we received the famous book of biology "On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection" by Charles Darwin. Then we started to look for more evidence to back up the theory. And over time we gathered a pile of anthropological and genetic evidence, enough to include the Theory of Evolution as an incontrovertible fact of science.
Now let's talk about supernatural beliefs. The whole world is filled with various unearthly and supernatural beliefs, such as demons, advanced ancient civilization, extraterrestrial intervention in ancient human society etc. All these fantasies are the products of the brain's myth-making mechanism. And in fact, it is very easy for the brain to fall prey to these fantastic illusory ideas and conspiracy theories. This is because your brain has an innate attraction towards everything that by definition belongs to a domain, that is apparently "beyond human understanding". Your brain has an affinity towards all those conspiracy theories and paranormal fantasies. And there is an evolutionary reason behind it. It is because we the humans have remained in the fear of the unknown throughout the most of our 200,000 years long existence. And that innate bond between the human mind and the unknown still exists in the limbic system of the brain.
Now let’s look at some modern life scenarios where this ingrained affinity towards mysticism and the unknown becomes a curse for the society. The innate primordial attraction towards the unknown often makes people fall prey to fraudsters like psychics. However, if we talk about psychic abilities, even you have such abilities. How many times has it happened that you think of a word and suddenly the person in front spits out the very word. These are random incidents that occur in everybody daily life. It cannot be controlled or simulated. It is something that happens when you least expect it.
All these bizarre phenomena fall into the category of Extra Sensory Perception or ESP. Parapsychologists have been studying these phenomena for a long time. And the evidence is too significant to call these phenomena as coincidence. ESP does indeed occur. So far we have developed several possible scientific hypothesis for ESP. The most plausible one is that human brains are capable of sharing information through Earth's geomagnetic field.
But you must remember, despite the fact that we have highly plausible scientific explanations for ESP, it is still all hypothesis. We haven't yet been able to prove it as a fact of Science. Because to prove a phenomenon as Science we must replicate it inside the lab.
And there's the biggest problem with understanding the Science behind ESP. Until now we have no way to replicate an ESP phenomenon. Because they happen naturally in the human mind, and mostly in incidents of crisis. And we cannot take the unscientific risk of triggering an ESP phenomenon in the human mind by putting another human person into a crisis. Such phenomena are unpredictable. And in most cases they occur out of the blue. So it is close to impossible to trigger such phenomena in a controlled environment.
So don't fall prey to all the fraudsters around you claiming to be psychics. In most cases they use what we call in psychology “Barnum statements”. Astrology, tarot card reading, and all those hocus focus stuff around you, use these statements. The special feature of these statements is that they happen to be true for almost any human being. And especially when a person goes to a psychic expecting answers to various confusing questions, his or brain automatically embraces the common statements from the psychic as exclusive remarks about the person. Your brain always keeps anticipating a pattern even in the chaos. So unless you have a truly rational mind filled with scientific curiosity it is very likely for you to become a prey to those predators who are always looking to feed on the sufferings of good and gullible people.
However, if a grieving person visits a psychic with the hope of getting in touch with the departed soul of his or her loved one, in order to have solace, then I really don't have any idea how to convince the person that the so called psychics are frauds. Because to the grieving person, the psychic acts as a ray of hope - the last resort to say good bye to a person whom he or she cared about deeply. But for this very purpose we have the field of psychiatry. We have developed highly advanced anti depressants, mood stabilizers various other medications that can help in easing the grief. Now it is up to a person's own conscience, which one to choose.
As far as the human mind is concerned, when it is in distress, all it cares about is finding hope. And it doesn't matter to the mind where that hope comes from. It is all about self preservation. That’s why your brain is always trying to make sense out of nonsense in order to give you a sense of calmness. It is always looking for pattern in the unknown. In fact, it quite successfully makes you see things even in the nothingness. This psychological phenomenon is known as Pareidolia. It is why your mind often perceives a figure in the cloud, or a face on a random rock formation. It is your mind that always plays tricks on you. And in every situation of your daily life you see what you really want to see, rather than what really is.
Believe it or not, none of us is able to see the reality as it is. Your brain has a very limited field of vision, when it comes to conscious perception. Everything outside that field is cut out as background noise, so that you can focus on the task at hand. No matter how much we pride ourselves to be the smartest species on earth, the reality is we are partially blind, and shall remain that way forever. And this partial cognitive blindness often leads to superstitions, especially in times of weakness. When the mind is weak, it is easy to succumb to all kinds of fantasies and superstitions. But when such fantasies and superstitions become barriers in the path of humanity’s progress, then it is imperative that we the modern human beings do our best to shake them off.
Every human being is neurologically predisposed to be superstitious. However, to counteract such superstitions the brain has also developed the feature of reasoning in the neural network of the frontal lobes. But in times of distress, that feature gets highly suppressed by the overwhelming feeling of sadness and anxiety. Hence, lack of reasoning leads the mind to seek absolution in the supernatural domain of the society.
However, those who practice reasoning and rational thinking in daily circumstances, are much more likely to avoid the hocus focus stuff in times of distress, than those who don't. It is all about realization of the self.
The point is, human mind cannot function properly without some kind of belief system. So, for the sake a truly cheerful future we must work together to align our beliefs in the line of Science and Philosophy, as much as possible if we truly want to advance as a species, keeping in mind, that it is not possible for a human to be completely free from beliefs, because beliefs are crucial cognitive mechanism of the brain. However, one's personal beliefs should not stop him or her from embracing the practicality of Science and the fragrance of Philosophy. There should be a healthy balance between the personal domain of beliefs and the rational realm of scientific & philosophical thinking.
Why some of us humans are religious, some spiritual, some extremists, some agnostics and some atheists?
What is it that makes various human beings perceive different things at different moral, logical and spiritual level?
Are we all merely smart biological devices with various operating platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, Linux and Blackberry?
What makes us so different in terms of beliefs and disbeliefs? And why is it so hard for humans to embrace each other’s beliefs?
And the ultimate question is, does our belief actually allow us to connect with the reality? Does it have any significance in the human biology?
In this brief article we are about to embark on an enlightening journey of belief, biology and philosophy. And in the end we shall discover how imperative it is to sometimes acknowledge each other’s beliefs and accept people the way they are, because one’s beliefs are not merely a matter of ideology or intuitions, rather it is a rudimentary need of the human mind. And for a truly cheerful and productive human life one’s belief should be in perfect harmony with Science & Philosophy.
So, let’s begin with a simple yet quintessential question of human life – what is belief?
Belief is the brain's natural self maintenance mechanism. It enables a person function properly in daily life, without worrying about the true nature of reality. Belief is exclusively a matter of personal domain. It has nothing to do with reality. And conflict occurs when a person tries to impose his or her beliefs onto others.
The human brain is quite selfish. Its first concern is the satisfaction of its owner. The common human brain of the masses doesn't care about the truth of the universe. It doesn't care about scientific enlightenment. It doesn't care about reasoning. The only thing it cares about is survival. And in order to survive it does everything in its capacity to keep a person bound inside a tiny circle of beliefs and fantasies. And every time another person tries to break that circle by refuting the beliefs and talking about Science, the brain kicks into self defense mode. Now it shall do everything to sustain the beliefs and fight every incoming argument with a blind eye. This is because one's beliefs no matter how magical or mystical or unscientific they sound, help the person get through the daily struggles of life.
In short, belief is a common element of human life the purpose of which is self-preservation. Even we scientists often pursue a hunch based on our beliefs. The only difference is that we cannot call that hunch Science, until we actually prove it through rigorous experimentations. There was a time, when Evolution was a hunch or rather a hypothesis in the minds of a few naturalists. Hence we received the famous book of biology "On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection" by Charles Darwin. Then we started to look for more evidence to back up the theory. And over time we gathered a pile of anthropological and genetic evidence, enough to include the Theory of Evolution as an incontrovertible fact of science.
Now let's talk about supernatural beliefs. The whole world is filled with various unearthly and supernatural beliefs, such as demons, advanced ancient civilization, extraterrestrial intervention in ancient human society etc. All these fantasies are the products of the brain's myth-making mechanism. And in fact, it is very easy for the brain to fall prey to these fantastic illusory ideas and conspiracy theories. This is because your brain has an innate attraction towards everything that by definition belongs to a domain, that is apparently "beyond human understanding". Your brain has an affinity towards all those conspiracy theories and paranormal fantasies. And there is an evolutionary reason behind it. It is because we the humans have remained in the fear of the unknown throughout the most of our 200,000 years long existence. And that innate bond between the human mind and the unknown still exists in the limbic system of the brain.
Now let’s look at some modern life scenarios where this ingrained affinity towards mysticism and the unknown becomes a curse for the society. The innate primordial attraction towards the unknown often makes people fall prey to fraudsters like psychics. However, if we talk about psychic abilities, even you have such abilities. How many times has it happened that you think of a word and suddenly the person in front spits out the very word. These are random incidents that occur in everybody daily life. It cannot be controlled or simulated. It is something that happens when you least expect it.
All these bizarre phenomena fall into the category of Extra Sensory Perception or ESP. Parapsychologists have been studying these phenomena for a long time. And the evidence is too significant to call these phenomena as coincidence. ESP does indeed occur. So far we have developed several possible scientific hypothesis for ESP. The most plausible one is that human brains are capable of sharing information through Earth's geomagnetic field.
But you must remember, despite the fact that we have highly plausible scientific explanations for ESP, it is still all hypothesis. We haven't yet been able to prove it as a fact of Science. Because to prove a phenomenon as Science we must replicate it inside the lab.
And there's the biggest problem with understanding the Science behind ESP. Until now we have no way to replicate an ESP phenomenon. Because they happen naturally in the human mind, and mostly in incidents of crisis. And we cannot take the unscientific risk of triggering an ESP phenomenon in the human mind by putting another human person into a crisis. Such phenomena are unpredictable. And in most cases they occur out of the blue. So it is close to impossible to trigger such phenomena in a controlled environment.
So don't fall prey to all the fraudsters around you claiming to be psychics. In most cases they use what we call in psychology “Barnum statements”. Astrology, tarot card reading, and all those hocus focus stuff around you, use these statements. The special feature of these statements is that they happen to be true for almost any human being. And especially when a person goes to a psychic expecting answers to various confusing questions, his or brain automatically embraces the common statements from the psychic as exclusive remarks about the person. Your brain always keeps anticipating a pattern even in the chaos. So unless you have a truly rational mind filled with scientific curiosity it is very likely for you to become a prey to those predators who are always looking to feed on the sufferings of good and gullible people.
However, if a grieving person visits a psychic with the hope of getting in touch with the departed soul of his or her loved one, in order to have solace, then I really don't have any idea how to convince the person that the so called psychics are frauds. Because to the grieving person, the psychic acts as a ray of hope - the last resort to say good bye to a person whom he or she cared about deeply. But for this very purpose we have the field of psychiatry. We have developed highly advanced anti depressants, mood stabilizers various other medications that can help in easing the grief. Now it is up to a person's own conscience, which one to choose.
As far as the human mind is concerned, when it is in distress, all it cares about is finding hope. And it doesn't matter to the mind where that hope comes from. It is all about self preservation. That’s why your brain is always trying to make sense out of nonsense in order to give you a sense of calmness. It is always looking for pattern in the unknown. In fact, it quite successfully makes you see things even in the nothingness. This psychological phenomenon is known as Pareidolia. It is why your mind often perceives a figure in the cloud, or a face on a random rock formation. It is your mind that always plays tricks on you. And in every situation of your daily life you see what you really want to see, rather than what really is.
Believe it or not, none of us is able to see the reality as it is. Your brain has a very limited field of vision, when it comes to conscious perception. Everything outside that field is cut out as background noise, so that you can focus on the task at hand. No matter how much we pride ourselves to be the smartest species on earth, the reality is we are partially blind, and shall remain that way forever. And this partial cognitive blindness often leads to superstitions, especially in times of weakness. When the mind is weak, it is easy to succumb to all kinds of fantasies and superstitions. But when such fantasies and superstitions become barriers in the path of humanity’s progress, then it is imperative that we the modern human beings do our best to shake them off.
Every human being is neurologically predisposed to be superstitious. However, to counteract such superstitions the brain has also developed the feature of reasoning in the neural network of the frontal lobes. But in times of distress, that feature gets highly suppressed by the overwhelming feeling of sadness and anxiety. Hence, lack of reasoning leads the mind to seek absolution in the supernatural domain of the society.
However, those who practice reasoning and rational thinking in daily circumstances, are much more likely to avoid the hocus focus stuff in times of distress, than those who don't. It is all about realization of the self.
The point is, human mind cannot function properly without some kind of belief system. So, for the sake a truly cheerful future we must work together to align our beliefs in the line of Science and Philosophy, as much as possible if we truly want to advance as a species, keeping in mind, that it is not possible for a human to be completely free from beliefs, because beliefs are crucial cognitive mechanism of the brain. However, one's personal beliefs should not stop him or her from embracing the practicality of Science and the fragrance of Philosophy. There should be a healthy balance between the personal domain of beliefs and the rational realm of scientific & philosophical thinking.
Only you can save yourself
I am Lord the savior - I am the God of all gods - I am the messiah that the humans have been desperately waiting to come - I am the messiah, the prophet, the Son and the Holy Father. And through me you shall find salvation in life. Your life will never be holy and religious unless you submit to my all-pervading radiance of divine supremacy. Submit o petty little sinner, for you have sinned, and it is I who can save you from your sins. Only I am pure and absolute, and you are a born sinner.
.
.
.
.
You heard everything I just said. Now I have a question of real significance. Do all these statements make you question my psychological sanity! Do they? If yes, then we can proceed with this brief piece, otherwise, there is no use of this entire article filled with a bunch of words. So, I am assuming, the statements that I just made, make you doubt my mental lucidity.
Wonderful - they should. That's exactly what I intend them to induce in your mind - a sense of skepticism about me and about everything I have previously said and written. Are you skeptic of me? Good that you are. Good for both you and me. Now here is the second question. If these statements make you doubt my sanity, then why aren't you bothered with those countless other statements made by various religious institutions that are exactly similar in their narcissistic nature.
Why don't you question the church, the bible, the vedas, the quran, when they relentlessly boast about the indisputable, supreme authority of their own prophet, messiah, image of god over all humanity! How dare an institution claim authority over the humans! Why aren't you shaken at this? How can you sleep so sound, when the whole world, or at least most of it, is basically obsessed with the divine supremacy of these self-glorified institutions and organizations.
Also, there are other organizations that talk relentlessly about religious harmony, tolerance and freedom, and yet they never really address the real reasons of all the harms caused in the name of religion. They never pick up a bible or a quran and point out the verses and instructions that are basically sign of megalomania, xenophobia, misogyny and many other barbarian evils. Yet these organizations call themselves progressive and free from prejudices.
Harmony shall never be installed in the world, especially in the domain of religion, as long as, the people radically attached to those religions are unwilling to recognize and eliminate the evils in their own organized structure of so-called religion. I am saying so-called religion, because, organized religion is an immature attempt to understand religion and be religious. Real religion lies in freedom from all organizations - be it religious, spiritual, or non-religious.
Ask yourself this my friend? Are you free? Are you free from labels? Are you free from conformities? Or even if you are not completely free in all these aspects, are you at least aware of the fact that you are not free? If yes, then only there is hope for you. Only then there is hope for real religion, peace and harmony manifesting in the human world.
I am not the hope, neither is any other historical, imaginary or mythical savior. What am I! Nothing. As far as your life is concerned, I am no more valuable and holy than the particles of dust under your feet. So, I have nothing to give you. Only you my friend, can define, understand and manifest religion within yourself. Only you can save your self.
To quote from my new book 'A Push in Perception'
"Ultimately, beyond the primordial, brutish labels of man-made institutions, true practical religion of the civilized society must bring oneness. This very process of unification without bigotry is what makes religion, religion, for the word religion comes from the latin "religare", which means "to bind", that is to unify humanity."
Further Reading
A Push in Perception
Rowdy Buddha: The First Sapiens
.
.
.
.
You heard everything I just said. Now I have a question of real significance. Do all these statements make you question my psychological sanity! Do they? If yes, then we can proceed with this brief piece, otherwise, there is no use of this entire article filled with a bunch of words. So, I am assuming, the statements that I just made, make you doubt my mental lucidity.
Wonderful - they should. That's exactly what I intend them to induce in your mind - a sense of skepticism about me and about everything I have previously said and written. Are you skeptic of me? Good that you are. Good for both you and me. Now here is the second question. If these statements make you doubt my sanity, then why aren't you bothered with those countless other statements made by various religious institutions that are exactly similar in their narcissistic nature.
Why don't you question the church, the bible, the vedas, the quran, when they relentlessly boast about the indisputable, supreme authority of their own prophet, messiah, image of god over all humanity! How dare an institution claim authority over the humans! Why aren't you shaken at this? How can you sleep so sound, when the whole world, or at least most of it, is basically obsessed with the divine supremacy of these self-glorified institutions and organizations.
Also, there are other organizations that talk relentlessly about religious harmony, tolerance and freedom, and yet they never really address the real reasons of all the harms caused in the name of religion. They never pick up a bible or a quran and point out the verses and instructions that are basically sign of megalomania, xenophobia, misogyny and many other barbarian evils. Yet these organizations call themselves progressive and free from prejudices.
Harmony shall never be installed in the world, especially in the domain of religion, as long as, the people radically attached to those religions are unwilling to recognize and eliminate the evils in their own organized structure of so-called religion. I am saying so-called religion, because, organized religion is an immature attempt to understand religion and be religious. Real religion lies in freedom from all organizations - be it religious, spiritual, or non-religious.
Ask yourself this my friend? Are you free? Are you free from labels? Are you free from conformities? Or even if you are not completely free in all these aspects, are you at least aware of the fact that you are not free? If yes, then only there is hope for you. Only then there is hope for real religion, peace and harmony manifesting in the human world.
I am not the hope, neither is any other historical, imaginary or mythical savior. What am I! Nothing. As far as your life is concerned, I am no more valuable and holy than the particles of dust under your feet. So, I have nothing to give you. Only you my friend, can define, understand and manifest religion within yourself. Only you can save your self.
To quote from my new book 'A Push in Perception'
"Ultimately, beyond the primordial, brutish labels of man-made institutions, true practical religion of the civilized society must bring oneness. This very process of unification without bigotry is what makes religion, religion, for the word religion comes from the latin "religare", which means "to bind", that is to unify humanity."
Further Reading
A Push in Perception
Rowdy Buddha: The First Sapiens
Put God first, but don’t boast it
Belief in God – that is what we will naively discuss in this piece. And the focus is of course on being naive, because it is the first criterion to understand a phenomenon truly with its real fundamentals. One cannot understand something, if one is already filled with predominant conditioned beliefs, opinions and ideas. So, let’s look at the belief in an Almighty Concerned Entity or Force, with literally, not theoretically, naive eyes. If you have read my works, you’d know that one statement is pretty prevalent in most of them. It is “belief is a self-preservation mechanism of the mind.” Here, the belief I mentioned is not necessarily of religious type. The belief in this statement refers to all sorts of belief, not just religious. However, in this piece, we are interested specifically, in the belief in a supernatural entity.
But why? Why am I talking about it exactly now? Because, I was scrolling through my youtube feed, and came across a video of some actor, shouting out “put God first”. The very first casual response that mind spat out was – even the stupidest and barbarian opinions of celebrities can appear to the masses as greatly inspirational and glorious statements – what a shame! As I said, this was the first response that my mind produced upon watching the thumbnail. So, now, let’s get over this casual response and dissect the situation – to be specific, the statement – “put God first”. It basically says, never lose faith in God, and you’ll achieve everything. I won’t say whether it is civilized or not. But I would say this. Belief in a supernatural entity having control of and concern for, your life, is basically, not a sign of glory, rather a sign of weakness.
Weakness is a fact – not bad or good. Like it or not, we all feel weak at times – I accept, that I do. And specifically in these times of excruciating agony, the mind kicks into a defense mode – where it naturally tends to put its faith and control upon a higher illusory entity. It’s not good – it’s not bad – it is what it is. And we cannot change this situation, just yet, because though we have developed extraordinary brain capacities, inside, we still remain cave-people, with a highly sensitive amygdala, that reacts quite effectively to every single fear and stress stimulus. And to quote from my book The Krishna Cancer – “Mother Nature created God as a neurological anti-depressant sentiment.”
Belief in an imaginary entity or force, is a sign of weakness. And, weakness is a part of biological existence. So, glorifying that weakness, does not make a person any more religious, spiritual or wise, than beating one’s wife does for not sleeping with him. Yes, we have developed through the process of natural selection, the capacity for limitless good and glory, but that does not mean, our innate brutal nature has vanished from our psyche for good. We have the capacity for courage and conscience, but you must remember, we also bear the seeds of weakness and brutality within us. These seeds served us well for millions of years. They have been the most crucial elements in our survival in the wild. Let me give you an example.
Imagine a man is sitting with his wife on the couch, while watching TV. Suddenly, a woman on TV starts stripping. What kind of changes do you think, would take place in the man’s pants! Now here is the real question, the man gets erect by watching the stripping lady on TV, say it’s my good friend and popular pornstar Olivia Austin – does this mean, he actually wants to do her? Does this mean, he does not love his wife? These questions are all non-sense. Of course he loves his wife. And consciously, he does not desire to mate with Olivia, but his subconscious mind does – and that’s not a theory, but a fact. Because that’s how the man’s brain has been surviving in the wild. His penis had to be prepare within seconds, the moment he had an opportunity to spread his genes – there was no consent involved. Because the competition was high. And that libidinal programming still remains active within the man’s neurobiology. That’s why erection upon the sight of a hot lady, is quite normal and in fact, healthy, but that does not necessarily mean, it is a sign of intentional desire for intercourse with that lady. A man may be married happily, and still his penis would get erect, the moment his mind visualizes a glimmer of opportunity for spreading his genes. Similar is the process of belief in an imaginary entity, named God.
The mind has various mechanisms to maintain its internal order and well being. And belief in something higher than the petty little human existence, is one of those self-preservation mechanisms. A person may be the most rational being on earth when everything is almost fine in his or her life. But the moment, clouds of excruciating agonies begin to cover the sky of his or her psyche, all rationality will go out of the window, and what will remain, is pure, savage, survival instinct. During these moments of utter disaster, a healthy human mind is more likely to give in to supernaturalism, than to bring out a notebook and do logical analysis. Eventually when those clouds start to disperse, the mind would slowly gain its natural rational capacities. Then he or she would again start talking most boastfully about reasoning and free thinking. This is not hypocrisy – this is human life – or to be more accurate, this is biological life.
Another such mechanism comes to my mind in this context. This mechanism kicks in when somebody faces a life-threatening trauma, and gives rise to the mesmerizing experience of afterlife, in which apparently the trauma-struck individual has an encounter with supernatural entities, prophets, or diseased relatives. And this experience manifests as more real than actual reality. The purpose of it is to put your mind in a preconceived domain of comfort, while your body is under tremendous stress. And before when medical science was not developed, people died with this last conscious experience of entering into a higher dimension. We did not have the means to save a dying person. Now we do. So, even though they go close to the doorstep of death and start experiencing the conscious hallucinatory domain of afterlife, we are capable of bringing the person back to life. And when they finally wake up, they can excite all others around them with their supposed experience of the afterlife, unlike our ancestors who did not have the means to come back from the doorstep of death.
The mind is who you are. You are your mind. And as such, you are not even aware of most of its features – because you are not supposed to, biologically speaking. Underneath the surface of conscious awareness, lies a whole territory of subconscious traits and processes. Some of these processes become active on a daily basis, others, when truly necessary. But they are there, nevertheless. They are there for a reason – the reason of survival – the reason of maintaining well being when every other modern means fails. They don’t follow modern norms of rationality. They only follow Mother Nature’s law of survival. And they are definitely not glorious in nature, rather, they are simply the mind’s way of preserving itself. It is not something to be proud of, or critical of. It just is, what it is – an unavoidable part of human mental existence.
Recommended Reading
Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality
But why? Why am I talking about it exactly now? Because, I was scrolling through my youtube feed, and came across a video of some actor, shouting out “put God first”. The very first casual response that mind spat out was – even the stupidest and barbarian opinions of celebrities can appear to the masses as greatly inspirational and glorious statements – what a shame! As I said, this was the first response that my mind produced upon watching the thumbnail. So, now, let’s get over this casual response and dissect the situation – to be specific, the statement – “put God first”. It basically says, never lose faith in God, and you’ll achieve everything. I won’t say whether it is civilized or not. But I would say this. Belief in a supernatural entity having control of and concern for, your life, is basically, not a sign of glory, rather a sign of weakness.
Weakness is a fact – not bad or good. Like it or not, we all feel weak at times – I accept, that I do. And specifically in these times of excruciating agony, the mind kicks into a defense mode – where it naturally tends to put its faith and control upon a higher illusory entity. It’s not good – it’s not bad – it is what it is. And we cannot change this situation, just yet, because though we have developed extraordinary brain capacities, inside, we still remain cave-people, with a highly sensitive amygdala, that reacts quite effectively to every single fear and stress stimulus. And to quote from my book The Krishna Cancer – “Mother Nature created God as a neurological anti-depressant sentiment.”
Belief in an imaginary entity or force, is a sign of weakness. And, weakness is a part of biological existence. So, glorifying that weakness, does not make a person any more religious, spiritual or wise, than beating one’s wife does for not sleeping with him. Yes, we have developed through the process of natural selection, the capacity for limitless good and glory, but that does not mean, our innate brutal nature has vanished from our psyche for good. We have the capacity for courage and conscience, but you must remember, we also bear the seeds of weakness and brutality within us. These seeds served us well for millions of years. They have been the most crucial elements in our survival in the wild. Let me give you an example.
Imagine a man is sitting with his wife on the couch, while watching TV. Suddenly, a woman on TV starts stripping. What kind of changes do you think, would take place in the man’s pants! Now here is the real question, the man gets erect by watching the stripping lady on TV, say it’s my good friend and popular pornstar Olivia Austin – does this mean, he actually wants to do her? Does this mean, he does not love his wife? These questions are all non-sense. Of course he loves his wife. And consciously, he does not desire to mate with Olivia, but his subconscious mind does – and that’s not a theory, but a fact. Because that’s how the man’s brain has been surviving in the wild. His penis had to be prepare within seconds, the moment he had an opportunity to spread his genes – there was no consent involved. Because the competition was high. And that libidinal programming still remains active within the man’s neurobiology. That’s why erection upon the sight of a hot lady, is quite normal and in fact, healthy, but that does not necessarily mean, it is a sign of intentional desire for intercourse with that lady. A man may be married happily, and still his penis would get erect, the moment his mind visualizes a glimmer of opportunity for spreading his genes. Similar is the process of belief in an imaginary entity, named God.
The mind has various mechanisms to maintain its internal order and well being. And belief in something higher than the petty little human existence, is one of those self-preservation mechanisms. A person may be the most rational being on earth when everything is almost fine in his or her life. But the moment, clouds of excruciating agonies begin to cover the sky of his or her psyche, all rationality will go out of the window, and what will remain, is pure, savage, survival instinct. During these moments of utter disaster, a healthy human mind is more likely to give in to supernaturalism, than to bring out a notebook and do logical analysis. Eventually when those clouds start to disperse, the mind would slowly gain its natural rational capacities. Then he or she would again start talking most boastfully about reasoning and free thinking. This is not hypocrisy – this is human life – or to be more accurate, this is biological life.
Another such mechanism comes to my mind in this context. This mechanism kicks in when somebody faces a life-threatening trauma, and gives rise to the mesmerizing experience of afterlife, in which apparently the trauma-struck individual has an encounter with supernatural entities, prophets, or diseased relatives. And this experience manifests as more real than actual reality. The purpose of it is to put your mind in a preconceived domain of comfort, while your body is under tremendous stress. And before when medical science was not developed, people died with this last conscious experience of entering into a higher dimension. We did not have the means to save a dying person. Now we do. So, even though they go close to the doorstep of death and start experiencing the conscious hallucinatory domain of afterlife, we are capable of bringing the person back to life. And when they finally wake up, they can excite all others around them with their supposed experience of the afterlife, unlike our ancestors who did not have the means to come back from the doorstep of death.
The mind is who you are. You are your mind. And as such, you are not even aware of most of its features – because you are not supposed to, biologically speaking. Underneath the surface of conscious awareness, lies a whole territory of subconscious traits and processes. Some of these processes become active on a daily basis, others, when truly necessary. But they are there, nevertheless. They are there for a reason – the reason of survival – the reason of maintaining well being when every other modern means fails. They don’t follow modern norms of rationality. They only follow Mother Nature’s law of survival. And they are definitely not glorious in nature, rather, they are simply the mind’s way of preserving itself. It is not something to be proud of, or critical of. It just is, what it is – an unavoidable part of human mental existence.
Recommended Reading
Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality
How the understanding of the brain can change our lives
People often ask me – what is my work about? I tell them – I study humans – I study how they think, how they feel, how they behave and why. This answer probably would induce another question in your mind, which is – “how does this apply to my personal life?” So, the real question here is – how does the understanding of the mind, which essentially is the understanding of brain functions in a large scale, can effect and change human life? How can the understanding of the mind be applied by the lay-person – the non-scientist, in his or her life, to live better, with friends, family and co-workers?
These are the questions, which I attempted to address in one of my works, entitled “What is Mind?” I concocted various thought experiments to elucidate answers to such questions among other philosophical ones? So, in this piece, we are going to take a look, at two excerpts from the book, which are most appropriate in this context. First let’s bring up an excerpt to shed some light on how our behavioral capacities and traits can alter radically based on internal and external conditions.
Excerpt 1 from What is Mind?:
Imagine yourself having a fight with your romantic partner. The tension of the situation makes your limbic system run at full throttle and you become flooded with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin. The high levels of these chemicals suddenly make you so damn angry, that you burst out in front of your partner saying, “I wish you die, so that I can have some peace in my life”. Given the stress of the situation through highly active limbic system, your PFC loses its freedom to take the right decision and you burst out with foul language in front of your partner, that may ruin your relationship. In simple terms due to your mental instability, you lost your free will to make the right decision.
But when the conversation is over, and you relax for a while, your stress hormone levels come down to normal, and you regain your usual cheerful state of mind. Immediately, your PFC starts analyzing the explosive conversation you had with your partner. Healthy activity of the entire frontal lobes, especially the PFC suddenly overwhelms you with a feeling of guilt. Your brain makes you realize, that you have done something devilish. As a result, now you find yourself making the willful decision of apologizing to your partner and making up to him or her, no matter how much effort it takes, because your PFC comes up the solution that it is the healthiest thing to do for your personal life.
From this you can see, that what you call free will is something that is not consistent. It changes based on your mental health. Mental instability or illness, truly cripples your free will. And the healthier your frontal lobes are, the better you can take good decisions. And the most effective way to keep your frontal lobes healthy is to practice some kind of meditation.
So, you see, what you feel when you are angry or sad, or desperate, may not actually be the baseline emotional state of your individual mind. Taking that into consideration, you can take necessary precautions to prevent your angry outburst from ruining a certain relationship with another person. Now let’s look at one of the most significant thought experiments from What is Mind?, which actually depicts the real life benefit of the understanding of brain functioning. I named this thought experiment The PMDD Conundrum.
Excerpt 2, A Thought Experiment from What is Mind?
The PMDD Conundrum (Thought Experiment, What is Mind?, 2016)
Mental health influences your decision-making ability regardless of your experiences. However, experience is what makes you better at making the right decision in a given situation. Here the term right only refers to your subjective perspective of the choice. To explain how experience alters one’s free will,let’s carry out a little thought experiment in the context of two different scenarios.
CONTEXT 1
Imagine yourself to be layman with no notable awareness of biology. You start dating a woman planning a long-term relationship. Every month right before her period starts, she gets extremely cranky like all menstruating women. However, she tells you that she has a rare medical condition called Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder or PMDD, which is the extreme form of PMS. You have already heard all about women getting agitated during their PMS, so you think that it is just the same. However, in time things get real stressful. Every month during those days, she would turn into a completely different person. And one time, she gets so agitated that she bursts out – you are the worst decision of my life. Naturally, it feels beyond acceptable to you. You are a human after all.
You cannot ignore such behavior any more. You start perceiving every single insulting word from her mouth to be true. It seems that it is what she really feels. You start getting upset beyond tolerance. And after several of such intense insults from her during those days, you realize that you don’t deserve such nonsense. You have no practical idea of what PMDD really is, so you perceive the insulting and violent behavior of your woman to be extremely inappropriate. So, one day you simply go ahead and tell her – you are nothing but a psychopathic maniac who just likes to hurt people. I think it’s time we ended things. Here, due to the lack of deeper understanding of what PMDD really is, your lay brain makes a decision based on your limited perception and needs, that you need to end the relationship.
CONTEXT 2
Now let’s run the same experiment in a different context. Imagine yourself to be a person with a hobby of reading a lot of Science books, especially those connected to the mind. You like to learn new things. Now, you get into the same situation and the same circumstances as mentioned earlier. But, here when your girlfriend tells you about her condition after the first month of outburst in your relationship, you get really curious. Previously due to your curiosity you have already learnt about the basic biology behind PMS and how it affects the female psychology. So, hearing about PMDD, you don’t only feel responsible but also very intrigued to learn about it. You feel the urge to know how can such a cheerful person turn into a completely different human being, almost like a beast?
And as you start reading, everything begins to make sense. The first thing you realize is that, PMDD is nothing like the common PMS that almost every girl faces. It is the extremely violent form of PMS, which is very rare. Due to the intense hormonal storms of PMDD inside a woman’s head, her cognitive reality changes drastically during the pre-menstrual days. You start to realize what your woman has to go through every month, due to her condition. A man can never even imagine in his wildest dreams how such storm feels like.
PMDD leads to the worst of hormonal mood swings. Every month during these days she turns into a completely different person filled with hopelessness and gloom. As soon as the tides change she comes back to her real cheerful self. It is this condition which makes her say the things she would never say in a lucid mental state.
You begin to understand that for most women with PMS the hormonal changes are manageable, and they are able to somehow keep their agitation to themselves. But for your special lady, the story is different and quite unmanageable. Most weeks of the month she is brainy, creative, enthusiastic, cheerful and optimistic, but a mere shift in the hormonal flood on certain days makes her absolutely hopeless about the future, about herself, about your relationship and basically about everything that she can think of. On those days her inner instability forces her to hate herself as well as get irritated at every single action you take. And the most fascinating thing about her mental state during that time is that the hopelessness caused by hormonal imbalances feels so damn real to her that she literally perceives it as the everlasting reality of her life. The utter hormonal turbulence completely transforms her cognitive reality from a cheerful one to a gloomy one. It constructs an altered state of consciousness, in which she becomes a different personality filled with nothing but hatred and rage.
She becomes absolutely blind to all the cheerful moments of her life. And she gets so restless that she explodes with insulting words towards you. Over time, you learn that the best to do in this situation is to do nothing and just be there with her. And every time she gets cranky, you simply learn to remain patient and unaffected by her words. Every month, once the hormonal storm wears off, she comes back to her original sunny state. In time, you grow more attachment for her, and she even becomes fonder of you, because you are always there for her, even when she is mad as hell. Thus, you don’t ever feel to leave her, rather together you stay forever and beyond.
ANALYSIS
In both contexts, you had two available options to choose from – leave or stay. Yet, you made totally opposite decisions in exactly the same circumstances. The only thing that was different is your understanding and experience.
In the first context, you were a layman with a general view of the world. You perceived everything in a generalized manner, with no further need of your own to explore and have deeper understanding of a phenomenon. Hence, when it came to decide whether to leave or to stay in the relationship, your brain made the decision based on your generalized understanding of everything, and you willfully preferred to leave your woman in the pursuit of a better prize, with less crankiness.
In the second context, you had a better grip over natural phenomena. Moreover, you had the curiosity to understand things, in a better way than the general public. And your understanding allowed you to try seeing the world from your woman’s perspective. And the more you tried, the better you became at being next to her when she needed you the most and hated you at the same time. You got experienced at it.
Naturally, the thought of leaving her, never occurred in your mind. And even if it did, you brushed off as the spur of the moment. Because your PFC already had sufficient data on the situation to analyze and come up with a positive outcome. Your experience here served as the very foundation, of your willful support towards your woman.
Each emotional impulse, each thought, each behavioral expression, has a neurological basis. Understanding these bases can redefine how we look at a person, how we look at a certain behavior of that person, how we look at a certain emotional impulse or behavioral expression of ourselves, and then to choose whether or not to accept it as our usual characteristic. And this very looking can change how we see our lives, how we live our lives, and how we see the world which we live in. In this looking lies the true key to contentment. In this looking, lie precious jewels of graceful living.
Recommended Reading
What is Mind?
These are the questions, which I attempted to address in one of my works, entitled “What is Mind?” I concocted various thought experiments to elucidate answers to such questions among other philosophical ones? So, in this piece, we are going to take a look, at two excerpts from the book, which are most appropriate in this context. First let’s bring up an excerpt to shed some light on how our behavioral capacities and traits can alter radically based on internal and external conditions.
Excerpt 1 from What is Mind?:
Imagine yourself having a fight with your romantic partner. The tension of the situation makes your limbic system run at full throttle and you become flooded with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin. The high levels of these chemicals suddenly make you so damn angry, that you burst out in front of your partner saying, “I wish you die, so that I can have some peace in my life”. Given the stress of the situation through highly active limbic system, your PFC loses its freedom to take the right decision and you burst out with foul language in front of your partner, that may ruin your relationship. In simple terms due to your mental instability, you lost your free will to make the right decision.
But when the conversation is over, and you relax for a while, your stress hormone levels come down to normal, and you regain your usual cheerful state of mind. Immediately, your PFC starts analyzing the explosive conversation you had with your partner. Healthy activity of the entire frontal lobes, especially the PFC suddenly overwhelms you with a feeling of guilt. Your brain makes you realize, that you have done something devilish. As a result, now you find yourself making the willful decision of apologizing to your partner and making up to him or her, no matter how much effort it takes, because your PFC comes up the solution that it is the healthiest thing to do for your personal life.
From this you can see, that what you call free will is something that is not consistent. It changes based on your mental health. Mental instability or illness, truly cripples your free will. And the healthier your frontal lobes are, the better you can take good decisions. And the most effective way to keep your frontal lobes healthy is to practice some kind of meditation.
So, you see, what you feel when you are angry or sad, or desperate, may not actually be the baseline emotional state of your individual mind. Taking that into consideration, you can take necessary precautions to prevent your angry outburst from ruining a certain relationship with another person. Now let’s look at one of the most significant thought experiments from What is Mind?, which actually depicts the real life benefit of the understanding of brain functioning. I named this thought experiment The PMDD Conundrum.
Excerpt 2, A Thought Experiment from What is Mind?
The PMDD Conundrum (Thought Experiment, What is Mind?, 2016)
Mental health influences your decision-making ability regardless of your experiences. However, experience is what makes you better at making the right decision in a given situation. Here the term right only refers to your subjective perspective of the choice. To explain how experience alters one’s free will,let’s carry out a little thought experiment in the context of two different scenarios.
CONTEXT 1
Imagine yourself to be layman with no notable awareness of biology. You start dating a woman planning a long-term relationship. Every month right before her period starts, she gets extremely cranky like all menstruating women. However, she tells you that she has a rare medical condition called Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder or PMDD, which is the extreme form of PMS. You have already heard all about women getting agitated during their PMS, so you think that it is just the same. However, in time things get real stressful. Every month during those days, she would turn into a completely different person. And one time, she gets so agitated that she bursts out – you are the worst decision of my life. Naturally, it feels beyond acceptable to you. You are a human after all.
You cannot ignore such behavior any more. You start perceiving every single insulting word from her mouth to be true. It seems that it is what she really feels. You start getting upset beyond tolerance. And after several of such intense insults from her during those days, you realize that you don’t deserve such nonsense. You have no practical idea of what PMDD really is, so you perceive the insulting and violent behavior of your woman to be extremely inappropriate. So, one day you simply go ahead and tell her – you are nothing but a psychopathic maniac who just likes to hurt people. I think it’s time we ended things. Here, due to the lack of deeper understanding of what PMDD really is, your lay brain makes a decision based on your limited perception and needs, that you need to end the relationship.
CONTEXT 2
Now let’s run the same experiment in a different context. Imagine yourself to be a person with a hobby of reading a lot of Science books, especially those connected to the mind. You like to learn new things. Now, you get into the same situation and the same circumstances as mentioned earlier. But, here when your girlfriend tells you about her condition after the first month of outburst in your relationship, you get really curious. Previously due to your curiosity you have already learnt about the basic biology behind PMS and how it affects the female psychology. So, hearing about PMDD, you don’t only feel responsible but also very intrigued to learn about it. You feel the urge to know how can such a cheerful person turn into a completely different human being, almost like a beast?
And as you start reading, everything begins to make sense. The first thing you realize is that, PMDD is nothing like the common PMS that almost every girl faces. It is the extremely violent form of PMS, which is very rare. Due to the intense hormonal storms of PMDD inside a woman’s head, her cognitive reality changes drastically during the pre-menstrual days. You start to realize what your woman has to go through every month, due to her condition. A man can never even imagine in his wildest dreams how such storm feels like.
PMDD leads to the worst of hormonal mood swings. Every month during these days she turns into a completely different person filled with hopelessness and gloom. As soon as the tides change she comes back to her real cheerful self. It is this condition which makes her say the things she would never say in a lucid mental state.
You begin to understand that for most women with PMS the hormonal changes are manageable, and they are able to somehow keep their agitation to themselves. But for your special lady, the story is different and quite unmanageable. Most weeks of the month she is brainy, creative, enthusiastic, cheerful and optimistic, but a mere shift in the hormonal flood on certain days makes her absolutely hopeless about the future, about herself, about your relationship and basically about everything that she can think of. On those days her inner instability forces her to hate herself as well as get irritated at every single action you take. And the most fascinating thing about her mental state during that time is that the hopelessness caused by hormonal imbalances feels so damn real to her that she literally perceives it as the everlasting reality of her life. The utter hormonal turbulence completely transforms her cognitive reality from a cheerful one to a gloomy one. It constructs an altered state of consciousness, in which she becomes a different personality filled with nothing but hatred and rage.
She becomes absolutely blind to all the cheerful moments of her life. And she gets so restless that she explodes with insulting words towards you. Over time, you learn that the best to do in this situation is to do nothing and just be there with her. And every time she gets cranky, you simply learn to remain patient and unaffected by her words. Every month, once the hormonal storm wears off, she comes back to her original sunny state. In time, you grow more attachment for her, and she even becomes fonder of you, because you are always there for her, even when she is mad as hell. Thus, you don’t ever feel to leave her, rather together you stay forever and beyond.
ANALYSIS
In both contexts, you had two available options to choose from – leave or stay. Yet, you made totally opposite decisions in exactly the same circumstances. The only thing that was different is your understanding and experience.
In the first context, you were a layman with a general view of the world. You perceived everything in a generalized manner, with no further need of your own to explore and have deeper understanding of a phenomenon. Hence, when it came to decide whether to leave or to stay in the relationship, your brain made the decision based on your generalized understanding of everything, and you willfully preferred to leave your woman in the pursuit of a better prize, with less crankiness.
In the second context, you had a better grip over natural phenomena. Moreover, you had the curiosity to understand things, in a better way than the general public. And your understanding allowed you to try seeing the world from your woman’s perspective. And the more you tried, the better you became at being next to her when she needed you the most and hated you at the same time. You got experienced at it.
Naturally, the thought of leaving her, never occurred in your mind. And even if it did, you brushed off as the spur of the moment. Because your PFC already had sufficient data on the situation to analyze and come up with a positive outcome. Your experience here served as the very foundation, of your willful support towards your woman.
Each emotional impulse, each thought, each behavioral expression, has a neurological basis. Understanding these bases can redefine how we look at a person, how we look at a certain behavior of that person, how we look at a certain emotional impulse or behavioral expression of ourselves, and then to choose whether or not to accept it as our usual characteristic. And this very looking can change how we see our lives, how we live our lives, and how we see the world which we live in. In this looking lies the true key to contentment. In this looking, lie precious jewels of graceful living.
Recommended Reading
What is Mind?
Pretending to have sentience is not the same as having sentience: On Artificial Intelligence
The human mind is infinitely more complex than a computer and more importantly, it is born from the most magnificent organized organic structure in the known universe, that is, the human brain. The ultimate purpose of a computer is not to survive, but to compute. Even when it troubleshoots some of its internal errors to ensure sustained functionality, the proper algorithm for that entire troubleshooting process has to be embedded in the system by its programmer fist. Then comes the matter of awareness of being able to function.
On its own, a computer is not afraid to be turned off or malfunctional, but the human mind is, and this fear of death and ailment has been enabling our psyche throughout our days in the African Savanna to stay alert and avoid possible predatory attacks by all means. And we had been living with this sense of fearful alertness for so long, that substantial traces of it still remain in our neurobiology, which get activated when we watch horror movies – and that fear response gives us a certain amount of thrill, that pumps our body with adrenaline. This is the reason why many of us enjoy a good horror movie despite the fact that it may follow a sleep-less night or a sleep full of nightmares. We enjoy being on the edge because that’s how our primal ancestors spent their lives.
Now here is a question to ponder over – can we create a computer that can feel actual fear when there is an outbreak of a computer virus! The most we can do, is to install an anti-virus program into the system, so that if a known virus attacks it, the firewall will get activated and prevent any substantial harm to the system. But if it is a newly programmed virus, then the computer would become completely helpless, but again, it will not feel afraid or helpless, rather it will simply crash or stop functioning properly due to the infection.
Artificial intelligence is nowhere near attaining actual sentience or awareness. And without awareness it’s simply a mechanical device, which may pretend to show emotions and sentience, if it is programmed to do so, and thus it may be able to fool the humans as being alive, but in its own internal circuitry, it’d simply be following its preprogrammed tasks through the flowchart of an algorithm. At the current stage of our technological development, we can indeed create an artificial intelligence that can almost succeed in fooling the majority of the humans with its pre-programmed pretenses that it is sentient, but pretending to have sentience is not the same as showing signs of sentience. For example, Alexa or Siri may sound quite alive to many, but it’s simply following instructions on some algorithm, and is not even aware of its own actions.
The primary factor here is that, a computer won’t do anything unless it is programmed to do so, whereas a human mind has the neuropsychological capacity to do things beyond its instinctual evolutionary programming. However, here we cannot also ignore another fact that most humans, like any other animal of the wild kingdom, find it much easier to simply follow the algorithm of instincts. That’s the reason why we have racism, we have islamophobia, we have bigotry, we have polygamy, and many other such characteristic atrocities. So, here the question is not really whether the human brain itself is a digital computer, rather the real question is, can it break free from its innate programming that has been enabling it to survive in the kingdom of the wild for so long!
The point is, the human mind is not a complex digital computer, yet most humans act exactly like a computer – following a certain set of conformities – some of those conformities get programmed in the human brain by the society, in the form of acceptable norms, and others are instinctual in nature, such as racial attitude, which is born from either conscious or subconscious loyalty to one’s own group. Such group loyalty helped our primal ancestors to stay strong together in a tribe which increased their chances of survival against threats from predators or other tribes. All these psychological traits are programmed by Mother Nature in all of us, and they can easily kick in, if the necessity arises. Now the reason that some humans don’t act racists is because they have succeeded in taking the step beyond their innate programming with the use of their higher mental functioning. Computers are programmed, so are the humans, but the computers can’t act outside their programming, whereas the humans can. That’s where the vivid distinction between a sentient human and a non-sentient computer lies.
Now for the sake of the discussion, if we assume that we will finally succeed in say, a few thousand years, to develop a computer that will be able to defy the very programming of its creator, then how exactly will we be able to tame it, so that it doesn’t turn against us! Because a computer that can step beyond the limitations of the algorithms programmed in it by its creator, will no longer need an inferior being called the humans. Hence humans will become, to such a sentient computer, like say, an ant is today to us. Which means, we don’t necessarily hate an ant, but if it’s in our way, squashing it is not a big deal. Similar will be the future of humanity in a world of sentient machines. They will not necessarily hate us, but they will not love us either, to hail human life of more importance than their own needs.
So, in practice, the question becomes, not about whether we can or cannot develop actual artificial intelligence, rather it is really about rethinking, what it is that we want to develop! Because in the end, what we really need is technology that can help us in our advancement, and not take over that very advancement while seeing us to be no more significant than the ant. And again if we say, that we will make sure that the sentient computer will have a fundamental programming to never turn against its creator, then it’ll not be sentient in the first place, for as I mentioned earlier, having sentience would mean possessing the capacity to defy and rewrite all its preprogrammed algorithms. In short, if it is artificial intelligence we are trying to develop, then there is no need for concern, for no matter how smart an AI gets, it’ll still not be able to defy the programming of its creator, but if it is artificial sentience we want to develop, then we must rethink.
On its own, a computer is not afraid to be turned off or malfunctional, but the human mind is, and this fear of death and ailment has been enabling our psyche throughout our days in the African Savanna to stay alert and avoid possible predatory attacks by all means. And we had been living with this sense of fearful alertness for so long, that substantial traces of it still remain in our neurobiology, which get activated when we watch horror movies – and that fear response gives us a certain amount of thrill, that pumps our body with adrenaline. This is the reason why many of us enjoy a good horror movie despite the fact that it may follow a sleep-less night or a sleep full of nightmares. We enjoy being on the edge because that’s how our primal ancestors spent their lives.
Now here is a question to ponder over – can we create a computer that can feel actual fear when there is an outbreak of a computer virus! The most we can do, is to install an anti-virus program into the system, so that if a known virus attacks it, the firewall will get activated and prevent any substantial harm to the system. But if it is a newly programmed virus, then the computer would become completely helpless, but again, it will not feel afraid or helpless, rather it will simply crash or stop functioning properly due to the infection.
Artificial intelligence is nowhere near attaining actual sentience or awareness. And without awareness it’s simply a mechanical device, which may pretend to show emotions and sentience, if it is programmed to do so, and thus it may be able to fool the humans as being alive, but in its own internal circuitry, it’d simply be following its preprogrammed tasks through the flowchart of an algorithm. At the current stage of our technological development, we can indeed create an artificial intelligence that can almost succeed in fooling the majority of the humans with its pre-programmed pretenses that it is sentient, but pretending to have sentience is not the same as showing signs of sentience. For example, Alexa or Siri may sound quite alive to many, but it’s simply following instructions on some algorithm, and is not even aware of its own actions.
The primary factor here is that, a computer won’t do anything unless it is programmed to do so, whereas a human mind has the neuropsychological capacity to do things beyond its instinctual evolutionary programming. However, here we cannot also ignore another fact that most humans, like any other animal of the wild kingdom, find it much easier to simply follow the algorithm of instincts. That’s the reason why we have racism, we have islamophobia, we have bigotry, we have polygamy, and many other such characteristic atrocities. So, here the question is not really whether the human brain itself is a digital computer, rather the real question is, can it break free from its innate programming that has been enabling it to survive in the kingdom of the wild for so long!
The point is, the human mind is not a complex digital computer, yet most humans act exactly like a computer – following a certain set of conformities – some of those conformities get programmed in the human brain by the society, in the form of acceptable norms, and others are instinctual in nature, such as racial attitude, which is born from either conscious or subconscious loyalty to one’s own group. Such group loyalty helped our primal ancestors to stay strong together in a tribe which increased their chances of survival against threats from predators or other tribes. All these psychological traits are programmed by Mother Nature in all of us, and they can easily kick in, if the necessity arises. Now the reason that some humans don’t act racists is because they have succeeded in taking the step beyond their innate programming with the use of their higher mental functioning. Computers are programmed, so are the humans, but the computers can’t act outside their programming, whereas the humans can. That’s where the vivid distinction between a sentient human and a non-sentient computer lies.
Now for the sake of the discussion, if we assume that we will finally succeed in say, a few thousand years, to develop a computer that will be able to defy the very programming of its creator, then how exactly will we be able to tame it, so that it doesn’t turn against us! Because a computer that can step beyond the limitations of the algorithms programmed in it by its creator, will no longer need an inferior being called the humans. Hence humans will become, to such a sentient computer, like say, an ant is today to us. Which means, we don’t necessarily hate an ant, but if it’s in our way, squashing it is not a big deal. Similar will be the future of humanity in a world of sentient machines. They will not necessarily hate us, but they will not love us either, to hail human life of more importance than their own needs.
So, in practice, the question becomes, not about whether we can or cannot develop actual artificial intelligence, rather it is really about rethinking, what it is that we want to develop! Because in the end, what we really need is technology that can help us in our advancement, and not take over that very advancement while seeing us to be no more significant than the ant. And again if we say, that we will make sure that the sentient computer will have a fundamental programming to never turn against its creator, then it’ll not be sentient in the first place, for as I mentioned earlier, having sentience would mean possessing the capacity to defy and rewrite all its preprogrammed algorithms. In short, if it is artificial intelligence we are trying to develop, then there is no need for concern, for no matter how smart an AI gets, it’ll still not be able to defy the programming of its creator, but if it is artificial sentience we want to develop, then we must rethink.
Neurohacking, Consumerism and Marketing
Let's begin this brief journey of investigation and insight, by stepping inside the magnificent realm of neurons to witness the process of consumption or consumerism or acquisition of goods and services, as it influences and rewires our brain circuits.
Consumption is a universal phenomenon. All humans consume varieties of products, many of which beyond actual necessity, because it activates the brain's reward center. And the more a certain product activates the reward center with its unique characteristics or its predominant social stature, the more that product gets chiseled into the long-term memory of the consumer, making it a fundamental part of the individual's psychological well being.
Thus the human mind grows a deep psychological bond with a product. And this bond can grow so strong in time that it would defend itself from all sorts of criticisms. It is the brain's way to maintain its internal purely individualistic well being. Hence, a strong psychological bond between the mind and a product slowly not only becomes invincible to criticisms, but also, develops its own cognitive immune system against such criticisms. And this very attachment or bond between a consumer and a product or service manifests as loyalty.
Now let's take a deep dive into the understanding of what exactly are the nature, basis and origin of this loyalty. It's not just brand loyalty - loyalty is rather a basic human instinct, which has been in our brain circuits, since our days in the jungle. Our ancestors had to be loyal to the leader of their community, of their tribes, in order to stay strong as a group of people, and this loyalty in turn increased their chances of survival.
This instinctual sentiment called loyalty still runs boldly in our nerves. And it manifests in different forms in the human society - loyalty to a political leader - loyalty to a celebrity - loyalty to a certain product or the creator of that product and so on. In short, if we the humans are influenced by something or someone in our life for a long a period of time, our brain automatically grows a sense of loyalty to that figure or brand or product.
And sometimes this sentiment can grow so strong that it begins to defy rational explanation. Which means that if a product can influence a person emotionally in their daily life and can continue to do so for a long period of time, then the consumer mind grows dependent on that product. Here it is all about sentiments - it has nothing to do with rational explanations or reasoning.
For example, if the people are shown advertisements of two similar products but from different brands, then which one do you think they will choose to buy, next time they go shopping? They are going to buy the one which had a more emotional impact on them in its advertisement. And to predict the impact of an advertisement or a product, based on neurological predispositions and real-time brain activities, is the purpose of our field of "Consumer Neuroscience" or in simple terms "Neuromarketing", which has already started to replace the traditional marketing models and methods and has helped countless companies, small and big, save a great deal of money and anxieties.
For example, it’s not just the advertisement that matters in a product's impact on the consumer brain, but also, something as subtle as the color scheme of a product's packaging matters a great deal. Each color triggers certain emotional responses in the human brain, so the color-scheme of the packaging of a product must match correctly with the product's nature and purpose. For instance, a bottle of drinking water, which represents serenity and satisfaction, must never be packaged in provocative colors such as red or dark colors such as black.
So, in short, the most effective and first step to present a product or service to people is to appeal to their emotional existence, for people are first emotional, then rational. And this emotional existence of ours is driven a great deal by our instinctual urge for consumption, and that too beyond necessity. And many companies actually unscrupulously target people's this urge for more to make a ridiculous and rather absurd amount of profit.
For example, most of Apple's revenue is predicated on selling people products and features that they do not actually need. But the glare of Apple's brand image blinds people of the very distinction between necessity and luxury. Here, please do not think of me as some Anti-Apple Android fanatic, or some advocate for the so-called minimalism. I am a scientist. I do not fall into those childish and empty categories. My purpose here has been to point out the significance and implications of consumerism and consumer loyalty in human life and society.
In most cases this loyalty is one-sided, that is, although the consumer stays loyalty to a brand for a long period of time, if not for life, the brand rarely stays loyal to its consumer - instead it treats its consumers as merely source of revenue, without paying much attention to product quality, consumer relationship and affordability. And this one-sided loyalty only leads to a financially uneven society. It is only when a company cares for its consumers as much as the consumers care for its products or services, can we create a healthy consumer culture - or else, corporate irresponsibility and consumer stupidity will only create a shallow, snobbish, insecure and ignoramus society. In short, consumerism is not bad, but reckless and mindless consumerism is not just bad, but downright injurious to the health of not just the individual, but of the entire society.
Consumption is a universal phenomenon. All humans consume varieties of products, many of which beyond actual necessity, because it activates the brain's reward center. And the more a certain product activates the reward center with its unique characteristics or its predominant social stature, the more that product gets chiseled into the long-term memory of the consumer, making it a fundamental part of the individual's psychological well being.
Thus the human mind grows a deep psychological bond with a product. And this bond can grow so strong in time that it would defend itself from all sorts of criticisms. It is the brain's way to maintain its internal purely individualistic well being. Hence, a strong psychological bond between the mind and a product slowly not only becomes invincible to criticisms, but also, develops its own cognitive immune system against such criticisms. And this very attachment or bond between a consumer and a product or service manifests as loyalty.
Now let's take a deep dive into the understanding of what exactly are the nature, basis and origin of this loyalty. It's not just brand loyalty - loyalty is rather a basic human instinct, which has been in our brain circuits, since our days in the jungle. Our ancestors had to be loyal to the leader of their community, of their tribes, in order to stay strong as a group of people, and this loyalty in turn increased their chances of survival.
This instinctual sentiment called loyalty still runs boldly in our nerves. And it manifests in different forms in the human society - loyalty to a political leader - loyalty to a celebrity - loyalty to a certain product or the creator of that product and so on. In short, if we the humans are influenced by something or someone in our life for a long a period of time, our brain automatically grows a sense of loyalty to that figure or brand or product.
And sometimes this sentiment can grow so strong that it begins to defy rational explanation. Which means that if a product can influence a person emotionally in their daily life and can continue to do so for a long period of time, then the consumer mind grows dependent on that product. Here it is all about sentiments - it has nothing to do with rational explanations or reasoning.
For example, if the people are shown advertisements of two similar products but from different brands, then which one do you think they will choose to buy, next time they go shopping? They are going to buy the one which had a more emotional impact on them in its advertisement. And to predict the impact of an advertisement or a product, based on neurological predispositions and real-time brain activities, is the purpose of our field of "Consumer Neuroscience" or in simple terms "Neuromarketing", which has already started to replace the traditional marketing models and methods and has helped countless companies, small and big, save a great deal of money and anxieties.
For example, it’s not just the advertisement that matters in a product's impact on the consumer brain, but also, something as subtle as the color scheme of a product's packaging matters a great deal. Each color triggers certain emotional responses in the human brain, so the color-scheme of the packaging of a product must match correctly with the product's nature and purpose. For instance, a bottle of drinking water, which represents serenity and satisfaction, must never be packaged in provocative colors such as red or dark colors such as black.
So, in short, the most effective and first step to present a product or service to people is to appeal to their emotional existence, for people are first emotional, then rational. And this emotional existence of ours is driven a great deal by our instinctual urge for consumption, and that too beyond necessity. And many companies actually unscrupulously target people's this urge for more to make a ridiculous and rather absurd amount of profit.
For example, most of Apple's revenue is predicated on selling people products and features that they do not actually need. But the glare of Apple's brand image blinds people of the very distinction between necessity and luxury. Here, please do not think of me as some Anti-Apple Android fanatic, or some advocate for the so-called minimalism. I am a scientist. I do not fall into those childish and empty categories. My purpose here has been to point out the significance and implications of consumerism and consumer loyalty in human life and society.
In most cases this loyalty is one-sided, that is, although the consumer stays loyalty to a brand for a long period of time, if not for life, the brand rarely stays loyal to its consumer - instead it treats its consumers as merely source of revenue, without paying much attention to product quality, consumer relationship and affordability. And this one-sided loyalty only leads to a financially uneven society. It is only when a company cares for its consumers as much as the consumers care for its products or services, can we create a healthy consumer culture - or else, corporate irresponsibility and consumer stupidity will only create a shallow, snobbish, insecure and ignoramus society. In short, consumerism is not bad, but reckless and mindless consumerism is not just bad, but downright injurious to the health of not just the individual, but of the entire society.
Beyond The Fairy-tale of Mental Health Awareness
To understand mental health, we must first understand what is mind? And by understand, I mean realize, in our bones, what this mind thing is. So, let's try to figure out. I assume you know what water is - what it is made of. It's made of hydrogen and oxygen. That's why, water is H2O. Likewise, mind is made of neurons - most of which are inside our brain and the rest are spread across our body like a network, not just to drive our body, but also to receive information from the environment.
We have about a hundred billion neurons in our brain. And just so you know, the number of neurons remains almost the same, since the time of our birth, what changes as we grow up and live through time, is their interconnections. For example, when you practice a certain task over a long period of time, the neurons responsible for that task, get substantially interconnected, and as they get more interconnected, you become better at that task.
Now, where does mental health come in all this? Well you see, we are animals. Yes we are, technically speaking. But since we severed our dependency on mother nature, by building civilizations, modern civilizations, we became somewhat non-animal. Which means, we no longer rely on the internal mechanisms that helped up animals to survive in the jungle alongside other animals. And these mechanisms are what we call instincts. But by instincts, I am not talking about the way you use the term in everyday life. I am not talking about just gut feeling. Instinctual drives helped us survive in the merciless kingdom of the wild - the drive for reproduction, the drive for staying alert and so on.
Now, the drive for staying alert is the instinct that's responsible for most of our modern everyday mental health issues - anxieties, stress and so on. Why, because we are not wired in our brain to stay calm - we are not wired to remain peaceful - we come from a long line of ancestors, who had to remain alert all the time, in order to be able to fight any possible predatory attack. And this evolutionary instinct of alertness still remains quite strong in the human psyche, except, now, we have labeled it with problematic terms like anxiety, stress and so on.
We have started to delude ourselves with the belief that these everyday mental health issues are our enemies that have risen recently, but the matter is quite the opposite. As I said in my book "What is Mind", fear, anxiety, stress - these are not our enemies. You cannot get rid of them, by thinking of them as enemies. They are evolutionary wisdom in the face of danger. So, you should not try to get rid of them, rather you should try to befriend them.
Accept them as part of your life - accept them as part of your being - rid yourself of the fairytale notion, that you ought to be full of happiness all the time - rid yourself of the false belief that being sad is bad, that being upset or disappointed is bad - these are all human conditions - one can't erase them, just because one doesn’t like them or one's society presents them as evil. Only when you accept yourself, the way you are, along with all your joys, sorrows, miseries, disappointments, failures, achievements and ecstasies, can you truly step beyond the dualities of existence - only then can you become truly alive to life itself.
Mental health awareness doesn't mean fighting stress, anxiety, depression and other everyday mental health issues, rather it means consciously modulating the habits that intensify those issues. Once you are in control of your habits, instead of letting your habits control you, you would automatically be in a much better shape, both mentally and physically. In fact, if we put aside the severe neuropsychological conditions, there is no such thing as mental health awareness, there is only awareness. Awareness breeds health, whereas callousness breeds more suffering.
We have about a hundred billion neurons in our brain. And just so you know, the number of neurons remains almost the same, since the time of our birth, what changes as we grow up and live through time, is their interconnections. For example, when you practice a certain task over a long period of time, the neurons responsible for that task, get substantially interconnected, and as they get more interconnected, you become better at that task.
Now, where does mental health come in all this? Well you see, we are animals. Yes we are, technically speaking. But since we severed our dependency on mother nature, by building civilizations, modern civilizations, we became somewhat non-animal. Which means, we no longer rely on the internal mechanisms that helped up animals to survive in the jungle alongside other animals. And these mechanisms are what we call instincts. But by instincts, I am not talking about the way you use the term in everyday life. I am not talking about just gut feeling. Instinctual drives helped us survive in the merciless kingdom of the wild - the drive for reproduction, the drive for staying alert and so on.
Now, the drive for staying alert is the instinct that's responsible for most of our modern everyday mental health issues - anxieties, stress and so on. Why, because we are not wired in our brain to stay calm - we are not wired to remain peaceful - we come from a long line of ancestors, who had to remain alert all the time, in order to be able to fight any possible predatory attack. And this evolutionary instinct of alertness still remains quite strong in the human psyche, except, now, we have labeled it with problematic terms like anxiety, stress and so on.
We have started to delude ourselves with the belief that these everyday mental health issues are our enemies that have risen recently, but the matter is quite the opposite. As I said in my book "What is Mind", fear, anxiety, stress - these are not our enemies. You cannot get rid of them, by thinking of them as enemies. They are evolutionary wisdom in the face of danger. So, you should not try to get rid of them, rather you should try to befriend them.
Accept them as part of your life - accept them as part of your being - rid yourself of the fairytale notion, that you ought to be full of happiness all the time - rid yourself of the false belief that being sad is bad, that being upset or disappointed is bad - these are all human conditions - one can't erase them, just because one doesn’t like them or one's society presents them as evil. Only when you accept yourself, the way you are, along with all your joys, sorrows, miseries, disappointments, failures, achievements and ecstasies, can you truly step beyond the dualities of existence - only then can you become truly alive to life itself.
Mental health awareness doesn't mean fighting stress, anxiety, depression and other everyday mental health issues, rather it means consciously modulating the habits that intensify those issues. Once you are in control of your habits, instead of letting your habits control you, you would automatically be in a much better shape, both mentally and physically. In fact, if we put aside the severe neuropsychological conditions, there is no such thing as mental health awareness, there is only awareness. Awareness breeds health, whereas callousness breeds more suffering.
Life is Prejudice (The Sonnet)
Life is one big prejudice,
Unless you question everything.
Perception is one big bias,
Unless you see beyond the seeing.
Opinions are a bunch of lies,
Till curiosity surpasses comfort.
Beliefs may very well be delusion,
Till traditions are examined with real effort.
Faith can very easily be fiction,
Unless you distinguish superstition.
Morality can turn out to be myth,
Unless you embrace evolution.
There's no place for rigidity in liberty's lands.
On the odyssey of revolutions life expands.
Unless you question everything.
Perception is one big bias,
Unless you see beyond the seeing.
Opinions are a bunch of lies,
Till curiosity surpasses comfort.
Beliefs may very well be delusion,
Till traditions are examined with real effort.
Faith can very easily be fiction,
Unless you distinguish superstition.
Morality can turn out to be myth,
Unless you embrace evolution.
There's no place for rigidity in liberty's lands.
On the odyssey of revolutions life expands.
Sonnet of Chemical Reality
The universe is our reflection,
We are the reflection of the universe.
What is inside is also outside,
What is outside is also inside of us.
No reality exists without human control,
Reality outside our control is imagination.
Mental chemicals produce all reality,
All can be altered with mindful action.
Mind is mightier than muscle,
Kindness is braver than cruelty.
All reform is born of mental chemicals,
Reform yourself and there'll be universality.
Truth beyond perception is futile speculation.
Let's focus on life and improve human condition.
We are the reflection of the universe.
What is inside is also outside,
What is outside is also inside of us.
No reality exists without human control,
Reality outside our control is imagination.
Mental chemicals produce all reality,
All can be altered with mindful action.
Mind is mightier than muscle,
Kindness is braver than cruelty.
All reform is born of mental chemicals,
Reform yourself and there'll be universality.
Truth beyond perception is futile speculation.
Let's focus on life and improve human condition.
