Making Psychology Complete and Essential for Understanding of the Human Mind, Behavior and Intuitive Awareness

I have taught psychology to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Patna University, Bhagalpur University, and IIT, Kharagpur for more than four decades. I have also taught some of the management courses to these students in IIT and in Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM). This teaching of management I am still continuing in Rourkela Institute of Management Studies (RIMS), Rourkela even after my retirement from IIT service.

I must say, I have always enjoyed maximum in a classroom while teaching these subjects. I have also been listening to my psychologist-colleagues and management experts in national and international conferences on different subjects. From all these, I can say with confidence that psychology has contributed a lot to me, to my colleagues in psychology and management, and to many others and, as a subject, it has been successful within its own defined area of study.

However, a few basic questions have been bothering me for quite some time. If psychology has become today the science of behaviour and mental processes, as defined by Myers (1995), do we understand fully what is behaviour? what is mind? what is mental process? Is it possible to know about all these subject matters through the objective or scientific methods we are using in psychology? Is psychology really understanding all the social problems and solving them? Is it really helping others and do people have respect for this subject?

These are some of the questions we need to answer honestly. Is it not a fact that all questions related to mind and behaviour cannot be answered in psychology because, for the most part, it has adopted the scientific methods which allow psychologists to study only such questions which can be tested in a precise, objective, and publicly verifiable fashion? Have not we been trained to formulate hypotheses and collect data to test their validity either through controlled laboratory experiments or through questionnaires?

Sometimes, we are allowed to gather information through some other methods like observation, interviews, clinical studies, and surveys. But what about such aspects of mind and behaviour like faith, trust, confidence, consciousness, spirituality, wisdom, karma, etc. which cannot be tested objectively? Should we simply drop them from the subject matters of psychology as Watson did to make psychology a natural science? Or, should we think of some other methods to study such subjects in psychology?

It is good that psychology is gaining consciousness today by including mental processes in its definition. But it would be still better, if it also includes another suitable method to study such subject matters. This will give us a chance to understand all the aspects of human mind and behaviour and will encourage us to listen to others on these subjects who have made significant contributions in these areas. My life-long experience to this point says that this will also make psychology complete and essential for understanding of the human mind, behaviour, and intuitive awareness.

Indian thinkers and psychologists (e.g., Mehta, 2000; Daftuar, 2002; Rao, 2002; Rao, 2005; Rao & Marwaha, 2005; Sharma, 2005; Sharan, 2005a, 2005b) have been talking about these subjects on different occasions and, I am sure, they can contribute a lot in this regard because many of them have got intuitive minds. We should not forget that modern psychology has the dual roots of philosophy and science and its scope has broadened considerably in recent years to include many such topics which Watson and other early behaviourists would not have tolerated.

Human Mind: Conscious, Subconscious or Unconscious?

The nature of human mind is difficult to understand because it is very subtle as well as hidden. Therefore, it has been defined in different ways by different authors or by the same author on different occasions. Freud originally presented a topographical model of mind and defined it in terms of conscious, preconscious and unconscious – ‘conscious’ as the part of the psyche that includes material of which one is fully aware; ‘preconscious’ as the part of the psyche that includes material which is not at the moment within one’s awareness but which can readily be brought to the conscious mind; and ‘unconscious’ as the part of the psyche that includes material not within one’s awareness and which cannot readily be brought to the conscious mind (Ewen, 1980).

But he put maximum emphasis on the unconscious mind. Today, however, a debate is going on between the “minds” and many are telling us to maintain a balance between these minds, as it is “one”. Bandler and Grinder (1979) have rightly tried to settle the issue by saying that they are different in just a way of describing events – ‘conscious’ as whatever we are aware of at a moment, and ‘unconscious’ as everything else – otherwise, as a whole, it is one. They are citing a very convincing example in their support: Suppose we are driving along the highway returning home; on approaching the neighbourhood, we start realizing that for the past several minutes our mind has been elsewhere.

Daydreaming, thinking about things, our mind has been on anything but paying attention to the road. We wonder how we managed to watch out for cars, follow traffic signals, and make the right turns when we were “not there”. Thus, there are a number of things we are doing without paying proper attention to all at a time and the pendulum of awareness swings between the “minds” without any difficulty.

Now, the next question is: By which name this one mind should be known? Those who are working in the field of information processing say that the conscious awareness is just the tip of the iceberg. It simply enables us to exert voluntary control and to communicate our mental states to others (Kihlstrom, 1987). Beneath the surface, actually, subconscious information processing occurs simultaneously on many parallel tracks.

When we look at a flying bird, we are consciously aware of the result of our cognitive processes but not of our sub-processing of the bird’s colour, form, movement, distance and identity. Therefore, from the functional viewpoint, it is the subconscious mind which takes care of all the processes that are occurring out of conscious awareness. This one mind thus should be known as the subconscious mind (Murphy, 2000).

Philosophers and some other thinkers, however, attach more importance to the conscious part of the mind. They say that it is the conscious part of the mind which does all the processing of information because it is logical, reasonable, and can change its point of view at will. Since the subconscious mind is not logical and reasonable, it cannot take any independent decision of its own, and it has to simply support the conscious mind. This idea of conscious mind has been fully supported by Vedanta (a philosophy and religion based on the Vedas that teaches the non-duality of the individual soul and God). It throws sufficient light not only on what mind is, and why it should be known as the conscious mind, but also on how it is illuminated by the power of consciousness.

According to Vedanta, the mind is known as antahkarana (internal instrument) which perceives through five sense organs – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin - and acts through five organs of action – the organ of speech, the hands, the legs, the organ of procreation, and the organ of evacuation. Thus, it recognizes different functions of the mind and thereby assumes that all these functions are possible only through the conscious mind. The power of consciousness, however, Vedanta says further, is not the built-in-characteristic of the mind. This comes from some higher source known as Soul, Atman or Self. Since mind is not the real perceiver or knower of the mental phenomenon, Vedanta differentiates between the mind and the Self – the mind as an object (the known) and the Self as a subject (the knower).

Anything that falls into the category of the known does not have consciousness as its very essence whereas the subject or knower does. Thus, there is one ultimate observer or experiencer, and that is the Self. This is the reason why today many are of the opinion that there are three distinct factors of human personality – the physical body, the mind, and the soul. They are vitally connected and though they appear to be one single entity, they are distinguishable. Thus, it can be safely concluded that one should not get caught by the words ‘conscious’, ‘subconscious’ and ‘unconscious’ because they are just to describe different functions of the same mind. Each of these is accessible to us in some way because they communicate with each other in their own way. This one mind, therefore, should be best known as the conscious mind.

From Conscious Mind to Superconscious Mind

We have seen what wonderful arrangements we have within us of mind and soul. Mind, which is like an instrument, is getting the power of consciousness from soul. That means our mind is functioning like a mirror which can perceive properly only when it is fully illuminated by our soul. Since soul, like sun, is throwing lights constantly on the mirror, it is for the mind to absorb them properly.

If it is neat and clean, it will absorb better; otherwise, it will not be able to do so. In this sense, Vedanta rightly says that it is possible for us to make our conscious mind “Superconscious” which will perceive and judge things in a better way making use of all the information available in the so called subconscious and unconscious minds.

Thus, for the development of the Superconscious Mind, we need to feed the conscious mind with rich food, nourish it regularly, strengthen it, and enrich it. According to Vedanta, “The richest soil, the soil of the human mind, lies fallow. If it could be tilled well it would yield golden crops, but since it lies fallow, it yields brambles and thorny bushes and weeds” (Ellis, 1994).

From perception viewpoint, Sharma (2005) has also identified three quantum states of mind: the state of Ordinary Perception (OP), the state of Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP), and the state of Extra-Ordinary Perception (EOP). Many of us are working with the first state of mind, and therefore, most of the times we are having ordinary perceptions including illusions and hallucinations.

But there are occasions we also work with the second state of mind and experience some kind of extra-sensory perceptions like telepathy and precognition. At the same time, there are some persons who sometimes work with the third state of mind and have extra-ordinary perceptions. Scientists and creative persons perhaps get something new only in this state of intuitive mind. Superconscious Mind thus refers to this state of mind when we experience cosmic connectivity and have good understanding, peace, wisdom and enlightenment.

The Universal Mind

The Superconscious Mind is also known as the “Universal Mind.” Many years ago, Jung proposed a psychoanalytic theory based on what he called archetypes of a universal unconscious. “These archetypes are a set of universal patterns from which all symbols evolve. They point to a region of the mind that exists as a common link between all people, living and dead.” Since Freud did not agree with Jung’s collective unconscious, the transpersonal mind remained neglected all these years.

Recently, however, many have started attaching importance to this transpersonal mind because it has many spiritual and moral possibilities hidden within it. According to Ellis (1994), “It holds possibilities which are locked away from the conscious mind, for it has at its disposal all subliminal psychic contents, all those things which have been forgotten or overlooked, as well as the wisdom and experience of uncounted centuries which are laid down in its archetypal organs….The unconscious can serve man as a unique guide, provided he can resist the lure of being misguided.”

Superconscious Mind is thus the soul’s mind which is connected to all others’ minds. Edgar Cayce has given a pictorial model of the link between minds (Reed, 1989). It shows there is one mind and people share it (see Figure 1 and 2).

Figure 1

The Relations between Individual Conscious Minds and the One Mind

In Figure 1, which is a multipoint star, Cayce shows how the star itself represents the entire mind. Each arm of the star represents a portion of the mind for a different person. The very tip of each point represents the conscious mind of an individual.

Figure 2

Regions of the Mind

In Figure 2, we see how the unconscious mind is a continuous connective layer of the inner parts of the mind’s arms. The star tips only seem separate from one another. The arms of the stars are clearly like fingers on the same hand. The arms represent our subconscious minds. All subconscious minds are connected. The core of the mind is available to us all via the Superconscious Mind. The relationship between the conscious, subconscious, and Superconscious Mind is thus something like this (see Figure 3) as suggested by Koh (2004):

Figure 3

Connection between Minds

From the diagram, we can see that we are all connected at the superconscious level, through our individual's subconscious mind. The conscious mind is not connected directly to the Superconscious Mind. Koh maintains that:

- There is only one Superconscious Mind (the Universal Mind), to which all of our minds are connected. It is like a mega computer that orchestrates the activities in every little computer connected to it.

- It helps us to make good decisions, since it has infinite intelligence. It has all the answers we want, including tomorrow’s share price!

- It is the source of all true invention. Great inventors like Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein have mastered the technique of receiving great ideas from the Superconscious Mind.

- It helps us achieve our goals. Once we truly understand the Superconscious Mind Power, we will realize that success is not a function of luck.

Tapping the Superconscious Mind

We have seen that our Superconscious Mind can access every piece of information stored in our conscious and subconscious minds. It can also access data and ideas outside our own experience, because it actually lies outside our human mind. That is why it is called a form of universal or infinite intelligence. Hill (2004), perhaps the greatest researcher on success of the 20th century, called this power the “infinite intelligence.”

After spending more than 20 years interviewing 500 of the most successful men and women alive in America at that time, he concluded that, without exception, their ability to tap into this higher form of infinite intelligence was the primary reason for their great success in life. We, therefore, need to learn about how to tap this Superconscious Mind which is the source of all examples of pure creativity. According to Tracy (2002), the critical factor in using our Superconscious Mind is our attitude.

Our Superconscious Mind functions best with an attitude of calm, confident expectations. When we adopt an attitude of faith and acceptance, when we confidently accept and believe that everything that is happening to us is moving us progressively toward the achievement of our goal, our Superconscious Mind seems to come alive, like all the lights have been turned on in a room. That is why successful people seem to have tremendous clarity concerning what they want, along with tremendous calmness and confidence regarding their ability to achieve it. This combination of attitudes will throw the power switch on our superconscious abilities.

Because of such superconscious powers, anything that we can hold in our mind on a continuing basis, we can have. We believe in the divine statement that “As you sow, so you reap”; and this law of consequences refers to mental states; to our thoughts. Based on this assumption, Tracy (2002), one of the world's leading authorities on personal and business success, has given a 10-step plan for plugging into our superconscious power to get what we truly want in life. He asserts that “make this plan a regular habit and you will be astonished at the results.” By doing so, you will move from the “positive thinking” of the hopeful person to the “positive knowing” of the totally successful person.

• Decide exactly what you want.
• Write your goal clearly in every detail.
• Write your goal in simple, present tense words on a three-by-five index card and carry it with you to read and re-read throughout the day whenever you get a chance.
• Make a list of everything you can think of that you can do that will move you toward your goal.
• Organize the list by priority - what is more important and what is less important?
• Resolve to take action every day on one of the items on your list.
• Visualize your goal repeatedly.
• Get the feeling of pleasure and enjoyment that you would have if your goal was realized at this moment.
• Confidently behave as if your Superconscious Mind were bringing your goal into reality.
• Release your goal completely to your Superconscious Mind.

Similar views have been expressed by many other Western thinkers like Stone (2006), Murphy (2000), Reed and English (2002), etc. Indian thinkers, however, differ in their approach. They teach about how to purify body and how to purify mind to control the mind. And, for them (Budhananda, 2005; Vivekananda, 2005), the entire secret of controlling the mind is: abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (dispassion). “….Practice and Dispassion must co-exist if one is to come to a perfect control of the mind. ... Practice is possible only by being a participant in the daily activities aimed at sustenance or betterment, whether individual or collective. But Dispassion suggests a stepping out of activities; it indicates a condition of being a witness to what is happening” (Mehta, 2000).

Human Behaviour: Physical, Mental or Spiritual?

We have seen how American psychologists defined psychology as “the science of observable behaviour” and, therefore, many of the studies in psychology remained restricted to only overt activities for many, many years. But, today, we are not agreeing with the behaviourists and are studying many subjective aspects as well. Not only that, we also try to explain every human behaviour in terms of ‘mind’ involved in it. We assume that every human behaviour is having minimum two aspects – the physical and the mental – the physical related to body and the mental, related to mind.

Since we want to maintain a balance between mind and body in order to have an “effective” behaviour, the behaviour becomes “spiritual” in nature due to Gestalt effect. This can be explained through the example of understanding love in a laboratory. Is it not a fact that by putting love under scientific scrutiny, researchers have misunderstood it by destroying its mystery? In reality, love includes affection and anger, excitement and boredom, stability and change, bond and freedom, etc. All these cannot be understood by any scientific method. As a result, those researchers, who have tried to know about it by using all sorts of sophisticated instruments, have found it to be a triangle of which the three sides represent physiological, psychological, and anthropological factors.

But, outside the laboratory, the “true love” has emerged as a circle which combines all the three kinds of factors into one. This combination in equal proportion, as a whole, is known as “spiritual love.” This is such a nice blend that no factor is trying to dominate upon the other one. This kind of “spiritual love” cannot be analyzed in a laboratory but can be experienced. Like this, every human behaviour needs to be effective (spiritual) and needs to be understood finally by experience. And such experience is known as “Intuitive Experience.”

Human Action: Behaviour or Karma?

For many of the Western researchers, human action is just a behaviour. But for Indian thinkers, it is more than that - “karma” - which refers to one’s intention or motivation while doing an action. According to Tsering (2004), intention is the most important of all mental events because it gives direction to the mind, determining whether we engage with virtuous, non-virtuous, or neutral objects. Just as iron is powerlessly drawn to a magnet, our minds are powerlessly drawn to the object of our intentions.

Intention may be expressed through either physical or verbal actions. Actually, Indian thinkers differentiate between human and animal behaviours. They argue that in the case of animals, instinct prevails, but in the case of human beings, reason prevails. Therefore, only human beings - not animals - have the freedom and capacity to judge rightly or wrongly about their behaviours. This exercise of judgement is known as karma and this makes human life as the karma-bhumi:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Unknown source

How Karma Works

Karma is a Sanskrit word which literally means action. But it also signifies cause and effect relationship. We believe in the divine statement: “As you sow, so you reap” like the third law of Newton: ‘Each action has an equal and opposite reaction.’ We also believe that the soul travels from one body to the next and the force that drives the process of rebirth of the soul is an element of karma.

Thus, for Hindus and Buddhists, karma is the mental and physical deeds that determine the effects of our life and rebirth and can be consequences from our previous lives or from actions in this one. Recently, some Western thinkers like Edgar Cayce, McArthur and Carmen Harra have also started believing in the same way: “Human beings come into a body alone and when we shed our body we die alone. The only thing we take with us are our memories, our karma” (Harra, 2002).

This shows clearly that all of us are governed by the universal “karmic law” and there is nothing by chance. Whether we realize it or not, every day we are creating karma with every thought and action. Either we kill an insect, abuse someone, or are jealous of a friend, we are creating bad karma. Similarly, every single thing we do each day that is positive like helping a person, aiding a beggar, or showing sympathy and love creates good karma.

In this sense, life is a constant balancing act of offsetting the bad karmas with the good ones. If we don’t erase our bad karmas or heal them at the end of every day, they will accumulate. Such accumulated karmas – accumulated over time and sometimes over many lifetimes – work like the “snowball effect.” They go on multiplying and multiplying. We, therefore, need to resolve negative karmas every day by regular prayer (confession) and by more and more positive acts. Otherwise, they will never be healed, and we have to live with the consequential sufferings.

Our largest obstacle to understanding or even believing in karma may be time. The 're-actions' or results of our actions show up with a time delay, and it becomes extremely hard to tell which action caused which result. Actions done in a previous life can create results in this life, but who can remember their past lives? For ordinary humans, the mechanisms of karma can be intellectually understood to some extent, but never completely "seen". However, every mainstream religion teaches us about the consequences of our actions. The explanations may differ, but does it really matter in the end whether the law of karma causes us trouble or God Himself in His final judgement?

How do we accumulate karmic seeds? Every physical and verbal action is preceded by mental activity. Goodwill motivates a kind gesture; ill will motivates nasty words. Ill will is the intention to cause mental, emotional or physical harm. Thus, before and during a bad action, ill will is present in our mind. The presence of ill will before and during this act has an impact on the mind due to which a certain potential is left behind.

This potential is a karmic seed, a seed planted in our mind by physical, verbal or mental action. The strength or depth of this seed is determined by a number of factors, including how strong our intention is, whether we clearly understand what we are doing, whether we act on our intention, and whether the physical and verbal action is completed. Seeds will remain in the mind until they ripen or are destroyed. Seeds left by negative mental events and actions can be destroyed by some opponent or antidotal powers. The most important of these powers are regrets for the negative acts and a firm resolve not to act that way again in the future.

Karmic Resolution

Every thought and action creates memory and comes back either to bless or haunt us. This is what makes us unique and composes our lives. It also creates a field of information around us at the level of energy. We store this information in our field like data in a computer. This data or memory is either positive or negative. All the negative memory will resurface in our life again and again, and the only way to move forward is to resolve it.

Reincarnation is thus one opportunity to repair what we did wrong. It is an opportunity to come back and repent, to ask for forgiveness and change what we did wrong. Life is thus a process of introspecting our thoughts and actions and resolving the bad karmas everyday. This can be achieved through purifying the mind and following the Karmic Resolution Method as suggested by Harra (2002):

1. Deep Breathing: Breath not only gives life, it also creates a bridge between the subconscious and conscious mind and connects the mind and body.

2. Memory Meditation: It is a powerful tool for allowing our conscious mind to access what is at work in our subconscious mind.

3. Expanding Emotional Awareness: Sometimes we react in a heightened way because of karmic memory or connection that is hidden in our unconscious mind. Expanding awareness allows us to break the cycle of inappropriate emotions.

4. Recognizing and Breaking Negative Patterns: When we understand which emotions are dominating our life and begin to view them objectively, we may recognize some negative recurring patterns. Such patterns or grip which they have on our life must be broken.

5. Restoring Equilibrium: We should use our conscious mind as reprogramming of the subconscious mind by using imagery that replaces all negative thoughts and beliefs with positive ones.

6. Designing a Vision for the Future: After breaking all negative thoughts and emotions and replacing them by positive ones, we can begin to visualize a new way of living.

7. Gathering Powerful Positive Energy: In order to create a new reality we would need to recharge our batteries by tapping into the energy of the Invisible World.

8. Affirmations for the New Reality: We need personal affirmations, which should come from deep within, to reinforce our vision and keep the energy of the Universe focused.

9. Prayers for Gratitude and Happiness: The most important way of celebrating our new life is through acknowledging the universal life force and kindness of God.

10. Recording and Tracking the Progress in a Journal: Writing things regularly help to clarify our thoughts and record our progress on different karmic issues.

We should always remember that the Universe wants us to be happy and fulfilled and to travel on the path of spirituality. There are many persons who have achieved karmic success on this path only through regular prayer and meditation.

Intuitive Awareness: The Key to Understanding and Healthy Living

The term “intuition” means exactly what it sounds like – in – tuition – an inner tutor or teaching and learning mechanism that takes us forward daily. The dictionary defines intuition as “the perception of truths, facts, etc. without reasoning; the immediate knowledge or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning; instantaneous apprehension” (Denning, 2001).

Swami Omkarananda (1999) also says “Intuition is the immediate knowledge of the Absolute, obtained through the eye of wisdom, as opposed to the knowledge of the external objects derived through the exercise of the senses and the intellect. It is truth obtained by internal apprehension, without the aid of perception or the operation of the reasoning powers. It is a direct vision and apprehension of the Divine Reality underlying the manifested and the unmanifested universe.”

That means, it is a process which perceives things without relying on the senses and gives us a kind of creative awareness by interpreting all the information in a holistic way (Sharan, 2005b). Seale (2002) has rightly said, “Intuition is spiritual energy, not psychic energy. Psychic energy is purely mental energy, and limited to mental energy, while spiritual energy embraces the totality of the universe. Spiritual energy acknowledges that there is profound knowledge and wisdom available when we become one with Spirit or the universal consciousness.” Intuition is thus both a vehicle for profound spiritual knowledge and for success and enjoyment in our daily lives.

Seale (2002) maintains further that intuitive awareness is a gift of talent which every one has to some degree and which can be developed to guide and direct our lives in powerful and transformative ways. Just as we develop other gifts and talents for use in daily lives, it is our responsibility to fully develop our own intuitive gifts in order to be true partners with Spirit in the co-creation of our lives. Even Einstein, one of the towering intellects of modern time, remarked once that “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Intuitive awareness thus simply means living life superconsciously. When we live our lives mindlessly or with ordinary mind, we begin to take on the attributes of whatever is around us, both positive and negative, being easily swayed by the forces and opinions of others. But when we live mindfully – with full attention given to each and every moment in our life – we begin to glow in our own light and truth. We come to know who we are, what our life purpose is, what our real motivation is, and what gives us passion. We begin to step into our own power and strength, and develop as individuals with unique gifts and talents (Sumedho, 2004).

In the Buddhist tradition, there is actually a practice called mindfulness. Mindfulness is simply focusing our attention on wherever we are and whatever we are doing at each moment. It is a state of becoming fully awake to who we are, what we think and feel, what the present moment is about, and clearly seeing our view of the world. It is thus a heightened state of awareness, opening us to the full spectrum of possibilities. “This practice of mindfulness or conscious living is an important step toward focusing our lives and developing intuitive awareness. The more we can focus our full attention on where we are and what we are doing in any given moment, the more we become fully aware of all that is there for us” (Seale, 2002).

Many belief systems teach that staying present or being ‘mindful’ is the basic principle behind inner peace and contentment which leads to intuitive awareness. Being mindful means giving full concentration to whatever we are doing in the present, having no real awareness of anything else, becoming completely absorbed, lost in the activity and the moment.

According to Clare (2003), “this experience of the moment means we are more likely to notice things around us….” This suggests that intuitive awareness comes to a person only when he or she has the intuitive state of mind. It involves more than simply “going with our gut” or “trusting our hunches.” It is also not synchronicity. It prompts a person to think in certain ways that create the results which contribute to well being, allowing synchronicity to manifest (Denning, 2001).

Reed and English (2002) also maintain that by paying attention to the thoughts, feelings, and images that come to mind, we are learning to tune into our intuition which is a natural gift born in everyone. But it becomes most effective in a person who learns to develop “The Intuitive Heart” by caring and loving his/her own inner self and of others. In order to have the intuitive awareness through the intuitive heart, they suggest the following six steps:

1. Learn from Your Breath to Trust Your Intuitive Inspiration: Focus on your breathing and discover how you can trust it to flow naturally, spontaneously, with no effort or control on your part. Intuitive inspiration will come to you automatically.

2. Make the Heart Connection: Let gratitude fill your heart, allowing you to release all concerns. Your heart energy naturally begins to expand. Focus it on the target of your search for intuition.

3. Invite a Memory: Ask for one of your millions of personal memories to pop into your mind. Without intentionally choosing it, but accepting the first one that comes, trust that within your heart is stored the perfect memory that is right for this occasion.

4. Tell Your Story: Explore the experience that surrounds that memory. Let your memory be the seed of a story – here’s what was going on, here’s what happened, here’s how it turned out.

5. Search Your Heart for Wisdom: See what lessons your story holds. What truth does it contain? What did you learn from that experience? What does this story teach you today?

6. Learn from Feedback: Note how the teaching story relates to the focus of your quest for intuition. How can you use this new perspective to respond to your current situation differently?

Conclusion

We cannot deny the fact that psychology developed out of philosophical speculations as to the nature of man when these came to be influenced by the advances in the biological sciences. From this union, psychology retained a philosophical, speculative character and a dualistic mind/body approach to behaviour and ‘mental life’. Watson tried to make it a division of natural science by dropping experience from its definition and his ‘behaviourism’ emerged as the methodology which dominated academic psychology for the next half-century.

But, in spite of its extensive and remarkably enduring influence, it warranted criticism. Today, with general acceptance, it has been defined again as the scientific study of both human behaviour and human experience. This has definitely broadened the scope of psychology and has made us realize that the science of psychology cannot exclude experience from its study.

However, it is also a fact that if psychology has now come of age, it is because it has achieved a more adequate ‘form of knowledge’ (Gillham, 1976). Today, psychologists construct theories that organize observations and imply testable hypotheses. To describe, predict, and explain behaviour and mental processes, they use several methods like Introspection, Naturalistic Observation, Questionnaire and Survey, Case Study, Correlation, and Experimentation.

Not only that, they are also trying seriously to capture consciousness or spirituality in their studies. Whether described as “inner journey” or “enlightenment” or “wisdom”, it is a domain attracting unprecedented interest and psychologists are rushing to fill the void. According to Hoffman (2002), “In coming years, we’ll surely see scientific validation on the connection between our spiritual well-being at work and our highest productivity, involving both mind and body. Undoubtedly, the task of assessing intrinsic spirituality will play an increasingly vital role in that domain.”

Now, the question is: How to study spirituality or consciousness in psychology? With the available methods listed above, it may perhaps be difficult to understand the issue and discern the truth. Every method has been found to be suffering from certain limitations. Even the experimental method, which is considered to be the ultimate method of psychology today, is subject to certain serious constraints. “For many thoughtful students the idea of applying science to human affairs raises concerns about how well experiments relate to life, how experimenters treat human and animal subjects, and how psychologists’ values influence their work and its applications” (Myers, 1995).

In such situation, as suggested by many Indian thinkers like Radhakrishnan (McDermott, 1970), Omkarananda (1999), and now being supported by a good number of Western researchers (e.g., Coleman, 2000; Denning, 2001; Fitz, 2001; Seale, 2002; Clare, 2003; Peirce, 2005), psychologists need to realize the importance of Intuition as a method of psychology. This will help not only in understanding of the Superconscious Mind and effective (spiritual) behaviour of the human beings but also in getting the truth obtained through other methods.

It has been rightly said that without following intuition, intellectuals will remain imperfect and divided, and blind to the truth behind the appearances. “Intuition is the only way by which the Absolute can be realized and experienced in all its totality. The mortal, finite, limited senses and the intellect cannot comprehend the Reality which is immortal and all-pervading” (Omkarananda, 1999). This is the reason why all Courses in Miracles are teaching today to have regular prayer (how to talk to God) and meditation (how to listen to God) to have His Grace for developing Intuitive Mind. We all have this system in place but, the irony is, we have not yet learned how to use it fully.

References