Optimality Of I Potentiality by Santosh Jha (the reading list book TXT) 📕

hour, I again touch or press the wounded finger with the same intensity as I did previously. It is for sure I shall feel less pain and even while pain may at times try to fall back to my previous ‘feel’, it shall be a different feel. This is some practice that Monks do and successfully unlearn their subconscious ‘knowledge’ of pain by persevered practice. A well practiced Monk shall feel the pain in completely different light and therefore, his or her level of tolerance of pain shall be much higher than an average person. This is what the Dalai Lama said, ‘Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional’. This is cognitive change that higher consciousness can bring about in subconscious ‘knowledge’.

The simple idea, which we have to consciously accept and practice, is to have clear distinction between ‘reality’ and ‘knowledge’ of expression of the reality. Pain is one thing but suffering from the same pain is altogether different aspect of the reality. Consciousness has this artistry of cognition to live up and sustain this distinction for wellness and success.

This knowledge aspect of consciousness needs to be understood well. Other advanced organisms, like a dog or a lion also may have consciousness, which creates set of experiences for them. The difference seems to be the fact that they experience but do not have evolved and permanent sense or knowledge that they are experiencing. The definitive sense of their body into their experiences is either completely missing or is too feeble to admit. The same happens with a baby. It also experiences things and stores many of them as memories but as the brain has not yet developed and systematized the necessary physical pathways, the sense of they actually experiencing them is too feeble to recollect later. That is probably why a baby’s threshold of pain is higher than grownups. Their sense of a definitive body in their experiences is somehow missing in their experiencing. It is similar in higher animals with sensory system. As we consciously segregate ‘Me’ from experiences and make clear distinction between experience and ‘knowledge’ of the same experiences, we can have better management of pains and other troubles.

The subjective consciousness in us that ‘we are’, seems a function of the knowledge the consciousness builds up by storing different body experiences as memories, which the actionable body creates. The dualism of consciousness is created because of the cyclicality of experiences and knowledge. The body’s sensory organs provide information from the milieus to the brain. The brain is physical part of information processing. It is like the hardware part of computation. The mind however is the functional part, the software part. This functional part, the mind controls the brain, the physical part. Mind is the knowledge, which is memories of experiences of body’s actions, stored in consciousness. The feeling of ‘self’, the sense of ‘me’ is a virtual realism as this ‘self’, the subjective consciousness is an intangible connect, a bridge between the physical and functional – the brain, and mind.

The brain is the physical pathway that makes the body act in a particular way. However, the physical pathway, the brain does not itself decide all actions. This is crucial distinction and needs to be understood. There is a key difference in deliberating and deciding an action and actually executing the action. The brain makes physical action possible by physically moving concerned parts of the body. However, whether the action should be taken or not or if taken then in what measure and intent, is what the mind works at, with its ‘knowledge’ of antecedents of ‘experiences’. This is functional part of information processing.

We all have empirical experience of this typical dualism of hardware-software cyclicality. In a computer, software deliberates a particular function but the software is not designed to execute the function as it is the role of the hardware. Software must have a pathway connecting hardware. The software shows the priorities and choices and the hard disk actually engenders the physical pathway to get the function done. Similar is the situation with our consciousness. The intangible domain of knowledge (the software part) deliberates an action and behavior priority and choice. The knowledge is a functional facility, a software faculty and therefore, it cannot itself execute the physical action and behavior. The brain shall execute the action and it shall be done because of the physical pathways, the brain has created for it. If the brains have not created the necessary and synchronous pathways (the hardware facility), there shall not be an action or the action shall be different than what the knowledge (software) had prioritized or chosen.

Often, we see that our computer does some task on its own will or different from the command we selected. This is typical software-hardware dualism. Consciousness also sometimes does the same as it also has the same built-in dualism, like a computer. Therefore, we need to change the way we look at and accept ourselves as. Our consciousness must be accepted in its entire mechanism and its mechanism entails that software choices must have commensurate and synchronous hardware pathways. Otherwise, the dualism of consciousness shall create its own scary choices, often constricting our wellness and excellence. We have to be in perpetuity of our higher consciousness, which ensures the symmetry and harmony of software-hardware (body-mind) dualism. We are humans, having a definitive edge and therefore, we cannot act and behave the way other organisms do.

The consciousness of other organisms, like dog or lion primarily has physical part of information processing – the hardware. The brain does take most decisions based on instincts, which are codes already written in the genetic navigation system. They too have minds, which takes into account some of the past experiences (software) but as they do not have evolved and complex memory mechanism, they have very fleeting sense of self-awareness. Even the memories become part of rote function, very much part of instinctive decision-making. The same happens in small kids. However, even in grownups, this instinctive action-reaction dominates decision-making. This leads to larger troubles and needs to be changed.

Usually, in humans the mind, the functional part of consciousness dominates the decision-making. That is why; the consciousness in us has dualism far more accentuated than other organisms. This dualism also splits the subject, the subjective feeling of we as the action doer. There is a physical processing of information and brain handles them, we being little aware of them. This part is instinctive response to stimulus provided by sensory organs and such actions are generic actions. This subject, which does these actions, is referred as ‘generic subject’. Science says, 90 percent of brain’s structures are dedicated to handling those action-reaction functions, which we are not aware of. They happen in unconscious or subconscious minds, where our body is the action-doer but the definitive sense of we doing them, as our bodies, is missing. Only two percent part is conscious action of brain, where decisions of action are taken in total consciousness, with perfect sense of we as our bodies involved in them. This itself presents a huge causality for dualism about our consciousness. In babies and higher animals, this conscious action is very negligible, not even this two percent.

We have evolved and complex mind mechanism, the functional part of consciousness. It dominates the processing of information, filtering it through personalized and subjective memories of experiences of past actions and those experiences gathered from popular experiences of the milieus, called contemporary culture. The actions, deliberated after such filtering are ‘specific’ and creates a ‘specific subject’.

The dualism of consciousness creates loads of troubles for average people. It is because of the mechanism we have and the way our brain and mind consciousness has evolved. However, knowing and understanding this dualism in detail makes us clearly understand that what we predominantly are; is a function of our perspectives and attitudes and in turn, our attitudes and perspectives are what we are.

Here is the idea of change in all of us. We are humans and we live in complex societies, which are so laterally and vertically interlinked that every individual’s action-behavior has catalytic impact on the wellness and excellence of millions of us. That is why in modern contemporary societies, relationship troubles in familial, societal and workplace domains are number one troubles of humanity. We all have a responsibility towards not only us as an individual but also towards all of us in the society we live. We, as aware and responsible citizens of a nation and societies, need to own every action and behavior. We already see the world we live in utter chaos, conflict and violence. Nations and societies need to be collective domains of wellness and excellence. They are not in contemporary world as this happens only when each of us consciously own and be responsible towards each of our actions and behaviors; not only two percent of them.

We have to understand and accept that in our usual consciousness, we are seldom aware of our actions. Most of our actions are very generic actions as we are usually in control of our generic subject. This has to change. We need to be aware of our bodies, and always be in the higher consciousness state, where the specific subject takes control and owns every action and behavior. The contemporary culture also makes us behave and act in a generic way. The pop culture pampers the generic subject. This needs to change. We are humans, we have the facility of higher consciousness, which separates us from a baby or an animal. We need to stretch our consciousness by being consciously aware of all our decisions of actions and behavior. We are humans with faculty of a super consciousness, which makes us, a definitive sense of we as a body, to hold back our instincts and emotions, assess their utility in a larger sense of collective wellness and excellence. A decision, when processed in a non-reactive and receptive mode, in a holistic-assimilative-integrative perspective by our super consciousness, the specific subject within us, shall be far more amenable to our own wellness and excellence and that of the society and nation.

We are in our perspectives and our perspectives are in we. Therefore, if we all understand and accept the singularity of the utility of the above-mentioned perspective in prioritizing all our actions and behavior, we shall ensure larger wellness and excellence of not only we, as an individual, but also the collectivities of society and the nation.

Now, the same ideas we need to understand also from the perspective of the ancient wisdom, the classical Oriental wisdom, explained in terms of kaaya (Body), maaya (external world/milieus), karma (Actionable duties) and karta (Subject). There is huge commonality, even as the symbols and means used in explaining these terms vary. The ancient wisdom also explains the dualism of consciousness and minute details, elaborates how there is a mystical causality between the kaaya, maaya, karta and karma, which decides cognition of the consciousness. In some way, scientific explanation may not be very conducive for average person’s understanding as we are still not used to many ideas of the modern science. Average person’s age-old faith mechanism also makes science a bit less acceptable in the subconscious mind. Let us delve into the old wisdom’s perspective on 3Cs – Consciousness, Causality and Cognition. This may facilitate our understanding about self or ‘I’.

The consciousness is a stupid engineering. Its mechanism is so intricate and mystically multidimensional that it keeps people in constant state of flux; engendering layers of realisms, not amenable for linear understanding of individuals. The elements of milieus outside body-mind mechanisms keep interacting with disposition of consciousness within. This action-reaction cyclicality engenders information, which mind stores as intangible experiences and memories in the subconscious.

The totality and wholeness of it is a person’s culture, which sets the boundaries of his thought-action-behavior domain. As the milieus change in the course of life’s randomized journeys, the patterns of its interactions with disposition alter synchronically. This energizes the incessant cyclicality of