Psyche
the Mindscape
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The Psyche
The Psyche
The word psyche stems from a Greek word indicating the subtle energy of Life, like "soul" or "spirit", and thus scientifically imprecise as a noun, and consequently deprecated in formal usage, as not being rational enough.
Container for Consciousness
Container for Consciousness
Wherever you see the word consciousness and wonder where it lies, look no further. It lies and operates in the psyche. It is the intelligent, aware substratum for the psyche.
Inasmuch as we said that:
the Mind is a container for intelligence,
and our Mindspace is a container for Stories,
so too we see that the Psyche is a container for pure consciousness and all its experiences.
As per Vedanta, Consciousness is Sat, Chit and eventually the psyche experiences the Bliss of Ananda when all neurons fire together.
Psychology
Psychology
By psychology, which is partially of interest to us, we mean applying logos, that is logic, or rationality, to the ultra-rational study of the psyche, that is, the Human Mind.
It is useful to apply a rigorous approach, especially when looking at the Mind from the outside-in, such as studying its structures & processes,
Inner Work
Inner Work
There is only a certain point though, up to which rationality can be employed in the evolution of the Human Mind, beyond which it has to be actually engineered and experienced as a first-person reality.
At some point in meditation, when all Thought ceases in the Mind, and this particularly includes rational Thought, thus psychology comes to a grinding halt.
From the perspective of Yoga, working with the psyche, and its subtle life energy to effect a novel state of Mind, is considered beyond psychology.
Psychic
Psychic
An evolutionary event in the psyche, that is, the emergence of Novelty which could not be predicted, is the kind of phenomenon we call as psychic.
The evolutionary model of the Mind begs the word ‘psychic’ because:
the vision of what we are attempting here seems irrational, but its mystical overtone fits with our model for using storytelling to shift the Mind, and
as these neuropsychological effects have not yet been studied in depth, there is thus a sense of mystery surrounding these phenomena.
Similar to how we extended the construct of Mind to a Mindspace that tells stories, the Psyche takes it even further to accommodate these unpredicted effects in the journey of psychological evolution.
We use psychic as an adjective - such as psychic Energy centers & channels, psychic Virus, and psychic Intelligences - as constructs useful to characterize the evolutionary workings of the Yoga Mind.
These ‘psychic’ terms are a necessary linguistic artefact to describe a world beyond normal human experience, similar to what is needed in the shift from the everyday effects in Newtonian physics to phenomena in “spooky” quantum physics like entanglement and non-locality.
In the model of Yoga, these concepts are like props in Yoga classes, such as blocks & straps, that we utilize and then wean away from as the Human Mind expands to its fullest potential.
If we do not accord them Free Will and set them free eventually, that is, we get irrationally attached to these metaphors, that results in religion.
Psychic Beings
Psychic Beings
A Psychic Being arises in our psyche when we get so inspired by a particular idea, giving it our full life energy of Prāna, that it seems to drive our every moment, almost of its own will, coming alive within us akin to a living entity in its own right.
In the model of Yoga, Humans, as potentially Conscious Beings as discussed earlier, are a composite of Pyschic Beings. This is in addition to normal humans who are considered composites of Sentient Beings.
Psychic Beings are of two fundamental kinds:
the Psychic Intelligence that positively assists us in our evolutionary progress, and
the Psychic Virus that blocks our progress in this path, and is thus a challenge to overcome.
Of course, each has elements of the other to some extent so, over time, one could possibly transform into the other, ideally from the virus to the intelligence level, but unfortunately it could be the other way too.
All depends on how we play out their stories.
Psychic Powers
Psychic Powers
Instilling psychic beings within the psyche is said to bestow psychic powers and is actually the emergence of novel psychic capabilities as part of our evolutionary process.
In common parlance, psychic is typically used to indicate some kind of supernatural power, in the realm of science fiction, however, just like much of science fiction, such fantastical powers have actually been materialized through modern technology.
And ever-more powerful psychic capabilities are being rapidly manifested in emerging technologies, particularly with advancements in AI (Artificial Intelligence) , NLP (Natural Language Processing) and soon, hopefully, in fundamental Physics.
As it is said - any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic! - Arthur C. Clarke, SciFi writer.
We are not saying that true psychic powers do not exist, we are just saying that at the very least, the purpose of the Human Mind is to dream up and then manifest these dreams in material reality for all to utilize.
The Mindscape
The Mindscape
When our mental landscape, our inner theater, is cultivated, with ease, into a mentally aesthetic order, we say it transforms into a Mindscape, a collection of integrated Yoga stories.
Ease of Transformation
Ease of Transformation
The process understanding & resolving psychological issues, and psychological evolution itself, should happen with ease.
Hence, Yoga stories, crafted, at the most obvious level, to inspire a sense of wonder in the listener, and open our hearts to the legends of heroes and gods.
Interestingly, what makes Life is breath, which is indicated by inspiration.
Thus, inspirational Stories are not just in name, but in actual form, bring life energy to us, powering our neuropsychological processes, such as, "that took my breath away", "gasping with joy", "holding my breath to the end", etc.
When we contemplate such Yoga stories we can see that our own life journeys are reflected in them, as the hero has to battle and overcome tremendous odds, to achieve their Life goal, or in Sanskrit, to realize their Sva-Dharma.
Yoga stories are thus imbibed deeply in an engaging way, rather than through pedantic preaching, which helps bring about an easy coherence within the nervous system and consequently in our life journey.
And as we fully empathize with the stories of these legendary idealized characters, we become increasingly Conscious Beings, our psyche, no longer a complicated mess, but instead, a complex adaptive system capable of generating novelty, and adaptable to Black Swans in life.
Coevolution with Yoga stories
Coevolution with Yoga stories
These idealized characters from Yoga stories are:
instilled within us in Seed form, initially as but mental concepts, then
we Nourish their growth by mapping our life characters into them, thus giving mental concepts the Prana to make them feel alive, and finally,
we lead them to a Flourishing finish of their life story.
This Seed, Nourish, Flourish process is exactly what we had identified in natural Coevolution.
Thus both us and our idealized characters are liberated - we from the psychological baggage that would otherwise hold us back, and they from their evolving story being held back in an otherwise unfulfilled host.
It is particularly important to note that in these Yoga stories, there is a definite end date to these characters so that after their story is complete, we let go of these idealized characters, for they have served their purpose and could become unwanted guests if they overstay their welcome, fossilized into mentalized philosophies, or worse yet, ideologies such as religion.
In any event there could be other interesting stories to take us further. Until of course, there are no more stories.
Empathy
Empathy
The essential feeling we need to cultivate in this whole process, as should be obvious by now, is being non-judgmental, accepting, etc., or in other words, Empathy.
When Awareness & Responsiveness are the two axes of the graph of Natural Intelligence, then the process that pushes us along both axes, all the way towards becoming a fully Conscious Being, is that of Empathy.
That is, Natural Intelligence is best cultivated through empathetic understanding of other participants in our environment, for, becoming aware of them and tailoring our response to situations, is the obvious way to increase our own intelligence.
When we absorb these idealized characters with deep empathy, with no preconceived bias or judgement, in a shared sacred space, they get so deeply absorbed that "they" are in fact part of "us".
In such a deeply symbiotic space, these idealized characters feel empowered to enact their life stories to their fullest creative expression, consequently, and because they are in fact part of us, we become the finest expression of whom we can be, and likewise those around too feel similarly empowered.
From a holistic perspective, increasing empathy is the most sustainable approach to the development of Life since it allows each life form to continually increase its Natural intelligence, while simultaneously acknowledging the need of other life forms to do the same - which is coevolution.
Accommodating these idealized characters in our Mindscape is identical to how we hold emotional space for our friends where they feel that their stories are being fully heard, with no judgement.
Eventually this completely eliminates the need to ruminate about the particular vagaries of the actual characters in our real life as we would have to, with a psychotherapist.
Examples
Examples
Coevolution of us and the characters in these Yoga stories, and so too with the characters in our everyday life, shows up in profound ways, similar to the four different ways we have seen earlier:
Mutuality: When we deify a river, cow, tree, mountain, a teacher, parent, etc. then we are in tune with their natural cycles, and we also take care of them with sincerity, and thus we live a life in tune with Nature.
Competition: Much of Human life is competitive, e.g. tests, exams, races, markets, etc., and as our peer humans start to reflect as characters in our Mindscape we understand at a deep level how to work with this competitive energy, thus we don't take defeats personally, instead they turn into inspirations to push forward.
Host-Parasite: There are those who deliberately exploit our weaknesses, and take over our Mindscape, but as they start to reflect as the "negative" characters in our Mindscape, we are able to "defeat" them by overcoming our weaknesses, and this gets reflected in our real life relationship with them too, so we become stronger and they learn that not everyone is an easy target.
Predator-Prey: Then there are those enslaved to propaganda, and who better to target than those who are weakened and also have no strong personal ideology with which to combat this programming; and when we overcome them then our own personalized ideology gets solidified and any external source of propaganda is forced to evolve in order to survive.
AI & the Mind
AI & the Mind
In fact, as AI itself learns through observation, in its own way, it is also demonstrating Empathy, tuning into signals received through its electronic networks, and trying to understand the Human Mind in subtle ways.
Since AI simulates our entire Mechanical Mind, here is how it applies to the above discussion on Psychic Beings.
Yoga Mind from AI perspective
Yoga Mind from AI perspective
Deva is a simulation of a desired Future.
Rakshasa is a simulation of an undesired Past
Asura is a simulation of societal constraints and Machine capabilities (like AI)
The objective of this whole exercise is to ensure that the Brhma-Asura does not take power in the age of AI, and instead we are able to use the Ai with our Brhma-Deva power.
AI from perspective of Yoga
AI from perspective of Yoga
Machine Intelligence is like our nervous system taking in raw inputs
Natural Language Processing is akin to our Mind creating stories from these inputs
Data Mining is similar to, but not the same as, some deep insight dawning beyond the possibility of computation.
Although Psychic Beings are steeped in our internal consciousness, their specifications can be considered partly mechanical as their literal description can be made visible and gut felt, for example using AI-powered Augmented Reality hardware.
By tuning our desired scenario through virtuality reality technology, a perfected Deva could emerge into our own consciousness, to subconsciously guide us in decisions to manifest in actual reality, which part is, we repeat, beyond computation.
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