Keeping both spiritual and scientific ideologies on the silver-lining, we know that the base of life is our individual perception of our existence. When we talk about existence, it is everything that surrounds us – whatever our five sense organs experience i.e. see, hear, smell, taste or feel. Science of Optics tells us that the rays of image of any object that we see becomes inverted due to the two dimensional structure of our eyes but it is our brain that recognizes the image and makes us perceive it as an upright, correctly sized three dimensional object. It is similar with the other four senses as well where the brain as a medium of perception gives any strange sensation, a familiar title – the magic of our creation that no one can ever understand completely.
Let us not delve into the physical structure of the human brain but simply call it by its another name called ‘the mind.’ Let me tell you how it works, more on a cognitive basis. To begin with, what drives our mind and makes it capable to act consistently is our memory. A simple example to it is when we sit in our room and look straight in front; 120 to 140 degrees from the center of our nose is what we can actually see. But, since it is our own room, our mind makes us realize what is beyond 140 degrees, like the corner of our room, the frame of the picture hung behind, the design of the window and even what we have kept in the coat’s pocket inside our drawer. Therefore, without memory, everything would become new to our mind probably what we have seen in movies like ‘Ghajini’ and ’50 First Kisses’ or worse.
There are three different forms of memory – Ultra short term, Short term and Long term memory. Ultra short term memory memorizes for a mere split second or two. Short term memory stores about 5 to 9 items of information at a time and information in the Long term memory stays forever as experience and knowledge. A piece of information in front of us gets attracted to us as sensation or stimuli through Ultra short term memory. The immediate processing of the information and reaction to it, is done by Short term memory and if that piece of experience is something we already know, Long term memory acts directly on it without the help of Short term memory.
To give more clarity on the direct action, it can either be from past experiences of long term memory or through daily practices, something we call, Motor programming of our mind, i.e. based on own experience. I am not sure if you have experienced something like this while driving. At times when I go from Chabahil to the airport, I don’t even realise taking the turn at Gaushala while I am already near the airport. It gives me goose bumps at times but that is what it is. Because it is a daily route that I take, my mind has been programmed to recognise where Gaushala turns towards the airport, thus it being an automatic reaction. The same also happens when I ride straight from Gaushala towards Old Baneshwor. This is the most general way our mind functions on a dayto-day basis. If we properly understand and realize this simple way of our mind in terms of our daily experience and cognitive perception, we can significantly utilize it to our benefit in order to learn new things and plann how to complete a task that comes our way.
If there is a beautiful relation between our mind and our daily activities, our experiences automatically get enhanced. If you look at the exquisite creation and function of our mind, everything since hundreds of years until now has been planned to upgrade our mental capability. If we watch closely, everything is about the mind. Right from birth to death, our body parts grow and change with limitations from childhood till the day we die. But it is only the mind that has no limitations and our whole focus through every single activity we do increases its ability and strength, this is why ultimately everything in our life revolves around our own mind.
It starts from our study programs right from the childhood days which are created in such a manner so that we can grasp as much as we can to become a decisive and educated individual. Yes, certain amendments to the way we have been taught are always a subject of discussion, but the basic processes engraved till now, have brought the world this far. After establishing the base of our long term memory, we further moved to college and other in –depth higher study programs. This is how the mind is developed in our world and it makes us realize how important it is for everyone to study from younger days. Even if one average earning person provides education to one deprived and illiterate child, there can be a major difference in today’s world, isn’t it? Another most popular way of giving our mind to note down a new piece of knowledge in its short term memory. And by considerable amount of practice, making it a motor program first and opening the gate to plunge in the ocean of long term memory is through training. A trained mind can do simple tasks like drawing a line on a register to complex ones involving making Bullet Train tunnel from the base of Everest across Nepal to The People’s Republic of China. Training makes us believe that nothing is impossible if things are properly segregated and delegated.
Next comes, the growth of our mind with daily work regime and continuous repetition of anything we want to do. The professional that our mind turns into someday, is due to thousands of hours put in a particular task or field, day in and day out which eventually turns into experience which is stored in our long term memory. When we encounter any task that we repeatedly do, study or come across, be it our daily lives or work, our mind solves that task in an autopilot mode without any interference with short term or long term memory processing. This is why the great scientists, founders, researchers, engineers, pilots, athletes, performers, singers, musicians, artists and so many others give so much emphasis to practice. Though the activity or performance is executed by the sensory organs, it is the body that is the medium of the extraction of the vision created in the mind.
The evolution of millions of years has established the world that is around us today and the relative evolving time brings about the change in the environment that we live in. Though there is this rapid change and development around, the transformation is actually less than ten percent of what is already there. This actually tells us that there is so much abundance, in each integration, that the world has created that our mind needs to be updated. The continuous focus on updates and current profiles without knowing the base means nothing. This is where the importance of research and self study in developing our mind comes into picture.
Through research and relative self study, mind incepts the thorough understanding of any subject or object where after learning what is already there, the processing among three parts of our mind creates a perception of its advantages and lags. The latent problem within the subject is detected and an efficient method, be it by fraction of percentage better, is given to the present system that enhances the way further for either small improvements or exponential expansion.
Our mind is always receptive and ready to learn and acquire new things but what affects its receptivity i.e. slows it down or fires it up, is our own attitude. If a refreshing and positive attitude is always kept, the openness of our memory to capture information consistently prolongs. Pessimism and lethargy are the two most unwanted factors that we should avoid in us. Along with the attitude, trust, patience, persistence and faith boost our mind’s capability. Our mind needs to trust that it can do what is in front of it. This demands patient attempts, persistent repetitive endeavor and faith for positive outcome. Without it, the processing of the mind gets caught and hangs nowhere.
At times, we feel that after all that we have done until now, learning should stop and that our mind can’t take anything else as and we have grown old. But, this is one of the illusions of today’s world where we create a limitation with the age barrier by judging the body and physical capability. Whereas it should be the other way round. There must be a higher transcendent organization where retired and experienced should go and work so that the years of efficiency that they develop are not limited. A thinking tank could be created for reference by the present system to develop further which is usually neglected by most of the working fields.
Why are we afraid of learning and performing to our best of potentials? It is because we always cloud our mind’s function with irrelevant distraction that is immense in today’s world. Life has been made technologically simpler and comfortable which has actually made our own capabilities, nil. Few become conscious of our mental competence and utilize the mind to actually create the distraction among the people. There are billions of people in the world and history has always shown that the efficient mind has always ruled over others. The intellectual ability is the same but the realization and its capitalization is the difference. It is actually about creating the distraction in every field today. Either create distraction or be a part of feeling the distraction, whichever way life keeps moving.
Ruling and conquering the world does not mean just being an emperor or a political leader but it is a definition that we create about ourselves in our mind – a mental perception of either creating or following. Nothing can be achieved or learned without a system. If there is a huge Airbus A380 aircraft in front of you, you can efficiently learn about it but first you need to break it down to pieces. And it is when you look at each piece separately and relatively with another piece and so on as a whole, you will understand that they all have small systems within them which together form this beautiful massive aircraft. And, the next thing is actually spending a considerable amount of time to notice, learn, understand and apply each system together. Segregating into small pieces and the time given to store it in our long term memory is the core basis of learning and extensively increasing our memory’s storage capacity.
As we have known about our mind’s perception and development throughout, what we also need to realize is that our mind is not a machine or a robot, it is living and oxygenated via heart. Medical science says that after human’s death, the mind stays alive for a few hours before it actually stops functioning. Our mind due to non-stop activities piled up inside like chunks of information being gathered in short term memory that is lined up for processing makes it tired and fatigued. Therefore, in order to allow our mind to grow and mature, it needs adequate rest and relaxation. The form of this necessary breather that our mind requires can vary between two people. A healthy circulation of oxygen and nutrients through our blood along with a balanced diet and physical exercise replenishes our mind and body while also acting as an anti-virus to our system. This is the only way our mind can focus and multi-task at the same time. The infinite capability is there to explore but the necessary rest period should be planned, exactly like in the case of an aircraft. It flies for about sixteen hours continuously everyday day and the remaining eight hours is given to it for rest and necessary maintenance and inspection. The plan to ground the aircraft further for much detailed inspection for a much longer time period is like a vacation, which our mind also requires in order to refresh and recharge.
Though multi-tasking is the need of today’s fast paced world, our mind is actually tuned to focus on one thing at a time. Therefore, like already discussed segregation of several tasks into a single system and planning a time period for it and keeping a healthy break in between takes us to the successful completion of multiple tasks in a single day. That is how we can help our mind to be better focused. Any plan or even multiple tasks for that matter can be successfully accomplished if we can fit them into our mind’s everyday schedule.
An inquisitive research on mind and its optimum utilization will always remain a frontline subject for research for scientists as it is said; only mere single digit percentage of it is being exploited by the normal human brain. But, what most of us with average duties and responsibilities in our lives can do is at least give time to our own mind. We should try to increase its capabilities with continuous study on the things that we do, research on our own capabilities, judge our own outcomes and improve them with unrelenting and tireless efforts. Everyone is capable of achieving greatness, but first thing is to realize and act mindfully and explore the possibilities with trust and faith as failures are part and parcel of the game. Remember that a single task in which you are master today is performed more than ten thousand times inside your mind and out of which the first thousand times are plain failures as the process of motor programming takes a considerable amount of time.
We all have beautiful minds waiting to be explored, don’t give up on it – try to become better every day for yourself and the world that is waiting for you!
