INDIAN PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE
M.B. Sharan — IIT, Kharagpur.
Today, psychology is the science of both behaviour and mental processes. Thus, what psychology lost once (consciousness), it is gaining again and is looking afresh into the human mind and behaviour. Many are recommending that we should not get caught by the words ‘conscious’, ‘subconscious’ and ‘unconscious’ because they just describe different functions of the same mind. Otherwise, as a whole, we have only one mind. We should, therefore, try to develop such a mind which can perceive and judge things rightly, making use of all the information available in different parts. In this process, we shall realize, as suggested by Vedanta, that our mind is just an “internal instrument” which perceives through the five sense organs and then instructs the five organs of action accordingly. Since Self (Atman) is the knower - not the mind, mind can perceive things correctly only when it is fully illuminated by the Self. In this sense, our mind becomes the Superconscious mind, which guides us with many spiritual and moral possibilities hidden within it, and our behaviour becomes “spiritual” in nature in which both mind and body work together harmoniously. Thus, truth can be known only by this kind of intuitive mind. This paper, therefore, pleads for Intuition as a method of psychology and suggests how intuitive mind can be developed for having intuitive experience.
Email the author: "Prof. M.B. Sharan" <mbs@hss.iitkgp.ernet.in>