What the heck is emotion? It's killing me. No... it's just on my mind. What does that mean? "On" my mind? Is there anything really "on" anything else? No, it's just a figure of speech. So what do we mean by "on my mind"? If we move away from the language of idiom, I think we can agree upon the statement that we are "thinking about" something. So there must be two things: there must be an occurring phenomenon and an observing entity.
We take the observing entity for granted. We just accept the thoughts as happening, and don't pay particular attention to a noticing party. There is what we think, and also a kind of lens through which the thought is perceived. (This, of course, is not an all-the-time activity: our lens is forver fading into unconsciousness, but we can always will into presence.) So there seems to be a psychic equivalent to the physical eye. We might call it an "inner" eye. It perceives psychic phenomena just as the physical eye perceives material phenomena.
OK so what the hell do we do with an "inner eye?" Well, it can be very useful. The minute you are caught up in some intense emotion or some irrational thought - if you are a thoughtful, reflective human being who has practiced this sort of thing - you can immediately use your "inner eye" to witness what is happening, and then subsequently evaluate whatever it is that's going on inside of you. The Buddhist tradition utilizes this technique - self-awareness, in fact, is perhaps their core teaching.
I am not advocating this or that technique for stress reduction or inner peace. Rather, I am postulating the "inner eye" as psychic fact; as if I were presenting an anatomy of the psyche. This "inner eye" is very important, for being able to produce it at a moment's notice - and, ideally, sustain it for as long as possible - is an integral part of increasing one's consciousness.
3 comments:
Mark--
First, finally got your blog link fixed on my blog. Sorry about that.
Second, I'm curious if your reflections are just coming up as a natural outcropping of your acaedmic work, of if they're small pieces leading up to a bigger work (thesis/dissertation, etc.)?
so if one lacked the "inner eye" or say did not use it, what is the recovery process? you say one can will it into process, is that always possible? does that make sense....this is stuff we are using in mental health class in diagnosing axis one illnesses and patients perception as well as things that alter it both biologically and chemically.
you're interesting!
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