Sri Aurobindo and Iain McGilchrist on intellect and intuition<\/p>\n
In a recent conversation on Auroconference (a worldwide online forum on integral yoga, for those not familiar with it) Rod Hemsell brought up an ongoing dispute between the philosopher Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein, on the nature of time. Einstein took a rather intellectual approach, expressing the common view of physicists that time is an illusion. Bergson held out for a more intuitive view, describing the irreversible nature of time, and the experience of it as an ongoing flow that cannot be grasped by the analytic mind.<\/p>\n
The psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist sheds much light on this, I think, in his book, \u201cThe Master and His Emissary.\u201d The book title refers to a parable by Nietzsche in which the \u201cEmissary\u201d takes over the role of the \u201cMaster.\u201d For McGilchrist, the modern \u201cindividualist\u201d (Sri Aurobindo\u2019s term) age can be summed up as one in which the emissary of analytic intellectualism, mediated by the left hemisphere of the brain, has taken over the role which should be played by the more intuitive right hemisphere. Out of caution that the mind is not so clearly localized in the brain, McGilchrist often refers to the \u2018left mode\u201d style of thinking vs the \u201cright mode.\u201d<\/p>\n
Left mode thought is linear, logical, it focuses on what is measurable and can be controlled, as well as what is easily known. Right mode thought is holistic, qualitative, generally leaning toward appreciation and openness rather than measuring and control. It easily relates to the immeasurable, the mysterious, the unknown, opening to it rather than trying to master and control it.<\/p>\n
And actually, to make it even clearer, it\u2019s not so much about \u201cthinking\u201d, McGilchrist tells us, as about how we pay attention. Psychologist Les Fehmi has made this very clear and applied in a wide variety of clinical situations over the past 45 years. The left mode tends to be characterized by \u201cnarrow, objective focus.\u201d One attends to the details, and may miss the big picture \u2013 looking at the \u201ctrees\u2019 and missing the \u201cforest.\u201d Modern neuroscientists refers to the areas of the brain associated with this as the \u201ctask positive network.\u201d Modern society tends to highly favor a \u201cdoing\u201d mode in which our attention grabs on with great, rajasic intensity to various projects, ignoring intuitive, instinctive and emotional input, often becoming increasingly narcissistic and focused on the \u201clittle me\u201d (mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex)<\/p>\n
Fehmi worked with one woman, Paula, an emergency room nurse, who had been suffering with severe migraines, stomach pain, anxiety and panic attacks for years. He noted that as she described her work, she was almost always in \u201cemergency\u201d mode mentally \u2013 stuck in narrow, objective focus. He simply taught her a complementary way of attending, a wide, open, immersed (emotionally, bodily engaged) attention. This simply switch of attention resulted in a complete absence of physical pain and anxiety in just 3 weeks. Paula later said that continuing to practice this over the next 3 months, resulted in virtually every aspect of her life being completely changed.<\/p>\n
Sri Aurobindo describes these two modes of thinking and attending quite beautifully \u2013 in terms similar to those McGilchrist used \u2013 in his chapter on the education of the intellect in his writings on education.<\/p>\n
There are many things that Sri Aurobindo has written about that are starting to be explored in contemporary cognitive, affective, volitional and contemplative neuroscience. I look forward to posting reflections on these. <\/p>\n
******<\/p>\n
There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. (Synthesis of Yoga)<\/p>\n
Ban user<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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