CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology
is the science of behaviour in relation to self-preservation. How?
It is because whatever we do,
basically concerns ourselves; our sensory organs carry out observations in
relation to ourselves; our interpretation, thinking and feeling are centred on
ourselves. In fact, preservation of self or ego, is the fountain of behaviour
which happens to be the field of psychological studies.
Components of self-preservation
Though self-preservation is the
root of behaviour, quality of preservation remains its ultimate object which has
two components, namely:
1. Paucity of fear and plentitude
of favour.
2. Maintenance and magnification of
individuality.
"Paucity of fear and
plentitude of favour" refers to a state of minimum pain and maximum
pleasure. Man, as a general rule, deplores pain and adores pleasure, though
tolerance of pain for the sake of an ideal is not unknown. Categories of fear
range from sheer uncertainty to death; gods and gurus exploit human fear of
death and thus induce people to carry the yoke of their divinity, and members of
the gubernatorial (ruling) class deliberately create social conditions to
conjure up an environment of uncertainty and mutual malevolence for keeping
people in a constant state of fear to make them toe the line.
Yes, man wants to preserve himself
but aspires to do so with dignity, that is, he loves to avoid a painful life and
does not like to cringe for favours. Fear and fawning, twist personality, and
man ceases to be what he ought to be. This is against human nature because I
want to be what I am. If I can be me, then I am a freeman but if I cannot, then
I am not me but someone else. This is the greatest deprivation that a man can
suffer. Me-being-me is an annotation of free will which is another description
of individuality. This is the reason that maintenance and magnification of
individuality becomes the goal of life because, in many ways, soul is the
transplant of a fully realised individuality.
What is individuality?
All humans have similar limbs and a
fairly uniform appearance. Not only bodily but also mentally they are very much
alike because each of them thinks, feels, knows and wills, and each has
determination, dreams, designs, desires and delusions, and each has the power to
deliberate and indulge in deeds of his own
choice Individuality is something
which operates all these characteristics at will, usually to its own benefit. It
is steam in a locomotive engine, fragrance in a flower, flame in a candle,
beauty in a woman and lustre in a diamond. Individuality is the cause of
diversity in unity. Without it, uniformity will be the rule of conduct leading
to boredom, regression and death. It is the true cosmic dream which comes true
at human level.
Individuality, as the law of
nature
Individuality is the law of nature.
One has only to refer to the biological process of meiosis which is a
characteristic of organisms that reproduce sexually. It is a division of cell
involving two fissions of the nucleus and thus produces four daughter cells,
each having half the number of chromosomes of the original cell. The pair of
chromosomes at this stage undergoes, what is called, "crossing over"
which is, in fact, a process of exchanging genes. This exchange is the fountain
of individuality because it ensures that no two humans are exactly the same in a
pool of a trillion people!
Personality
In discussion on psychology, may be
I should call individuality as "personality" which refers to the
organization of traits or characteristics within an individual but I shouldn't,
because personality has also been described as persona which points to the mask
worn by the ancient Greek actors. Thus psychologists have used the word:
"personality" as a cover to hide one's true self for projecting a
socially acceptable image of one's self. Alfred Alder who invented the theory of
"Individual Psychology" stressed that it expresses a human "drive
to power" to gain superiority as a compensation for the feelings of
inferiority. This is why a short person becomes aggressive to make up for his
small stature.
Difference between uniformity
and harmony
From this discussion, it is quite
clear that personality refers to behaviour and the way one projects one's self
socially. On the contrary, I am using the word: "individuality" to
assert its intrinsic worth as the end product of the natural process that starts
with particles and ends with men. Personality is a mode of behaviour as depicted
by one's organization of traits but individuality refers to the state when
"me wants to be me" according to my own free will. Thus individuality
means a search for release from social coercion and the state law with a view to
conducting one's self in a socially acceptable manner leading to communal
harmony. Here one should note the difference between uniformity and harmony. The
former denotes force but the latter implies volition; the former is based on law
but the latter emanates from moral conscience.
Human nature
Individuality represents the law of
nature which is self-improvement: evolution of particles into stars and man
proves this point. Self-improvement must also be the nature of man who happens
to be the microcosm i.e. the miniature replica of the universe.
However, self-improvement though
eventually an achievable goal, exists as a tendency. It is like an overcast sky
which may be taken as a promise of rain but without any guarantee. There is a
"psychological" reason for it. If there were an assurance that every
one could improve oneself the way one desired, value of action or behaviour
would deteriorate. Tendency is something which is more likely to happen than
not. The extent to which it may not happen represents an amount of uncertainty.
The purpose of this uncertainty is to weaken the grip of determinism so that man
can use his own free will, planning and action to make it happen the way he
wants it. Self-improvement is the nature of man like that of the cosmos. The
fact that every human strives to improve himself, proves the veracity of this
assertion. However, the idea of self-improvement may differ from person to
person, and this indicates that man is a free agent. Thus the concept of
predestination cannot be applied to him as a straight-jacket. The Stoics thought
that man is governed by fate and is analogous to the dog tied to the back of a
wagon, and must follow it willy-nilly.
It is man's nature to have a goal,
yet he is free to accept or reject that goal; he is also at liberty to choose
the means and types of action he wants. Again, when "the fixed goal"
represents the apex, it ceases to be predestination because apex is the highest
point and there is nothing higher than this. As far as it is known, light has
the fastest possible speed. One may call it the destiny of light but it will be
wrong because there is no speed that can be faster than this. Again a particle
(or quark) is the smallest entity. This is not a proof of destiny. It simply
proves that nothing can be smaller than a particle. The fact that things vary
between two limits - minimum and maximum, lowest and highest, slowest and
fastest proves they have a goal, that is, moving from the lowest to the highest.
This is not predestination but the greatest possible choice which is nothing but
self-improvement. What constantly tries to improve itself, is prone to be good.
This sums up the human nature.
However, modern scientific trend is
to deny the existence of a universal purpose and assume chance as the sole
evolutionary force. This attitude is a part of science-fiction for its total
isolation from the world of reality which is based on deliberation, ingenuity,
engineering and self-motivation. To assert the supremacy of chance, they claim
that the universe came to a halt at the stage of helium which is a poor bonder,
and the fiasco was averted by the evolution of carbon which is a great mixer and
thus more productive.
It is all a guess work. The fact
that something saved the universe from becoming a total failure, and put it on
the road to self-improvement, clearly shows that the universe has the ability to
find its own way forward which is self-improvement; it does not rely on chance
for direction. It finds its way through a process of trial and error and thus
becomes immune from the clutches of predestination. Therefore, man's nature is
self-improvement but the magnitude of betterment depends upon the quality of his
effort or behaviour.
In the previous chapter, I
mentioned the contrary human traits. It does not mean that man as an aggregate
of the opposites, or possesses a neutral nature. The
purpose of this mechanism is to
provide psychic energy for enabling man to set up a pattern of behaviour.
Whether he will be virtuous or vicious, depends upon which of his opposite
traits is ascendant: kind or cruel, malevolent or munificent. Man is potentially
prone to be good, though considerations of self-preservation or interests of ego
usually override everything else. What is ego?
Ego
Ego is a Latin word. It means
"I" which expresses the existence of self. Ego is the window through
which one looks out at the world: all pain and pleasure exists in relation to
one's self; a person who cannot feel his own pain and pleasure is incapable of
measuring someone else's dole and delight. The presence of good and bad is also
relative to one's own moral sense.
Whatever man does, he does it for
his ego or self: when he is kind to his friends or family, he does so to enhance
his own pleasure and when he is cruel to others he indulges in appeasing his own
morbid instincts. Even when he loses his life in a crusade, he performs this
duty to find a place for himself in the paradise.
Ego or "I" has various
forms; some or singular or individualistic e.g. me, my, mine and some are plural
or social e.g. we, us, our. It means that man operates both in isolation and in
conjunction with others to cultivate his self. Therefore, both individuality and
society are extensions of the ego. However, I shall confine this discussion to
individuality in this chapter.
Operation of ego
At its basic level, ego abuses free
will i.e. the power to choose between alternatives. It adopts the attitude that
solely guarantees its personal pleasures without considering their effects on
fellow-beings but once lessons of such behaviour are learnt through painful
retribution, man's moral sense is activated by his natural tendency of
self-improvement. However, as free will implies the power to choose between
alternatives, moral sense means the ability to differentiate between good and
bad, and not the ability to act virtuously. This fact can be verified with
reference to any "advanced" society where everyone knows the
difference between good and bad but in practice good is what is good for the
actor who is usually ready to quote from the Scriptures or the Statutes to prove
the righteousness of his acts which he knows full well to be based on falsehood.
Purity of motive
Whether an action is morally right
or not, primarily depends upon the purity of motive Of course, good consequences
can follow from bad motives and bad results can spring from good motives, but as
motive is the fountain of action, its purity is of paramount importance: a
stream which is an extension of a sewer lacks the purity of origin but a brook
emanating from snow is originally clean though it may carry pollution as it
winds through valleys infested with impurities. If an act is carefully planned
and performed with good intention but eventually backfires, it is still
indicative of virtue, but an act stemming from a foul motive, however
beneficial, lacks the purity of origin. In ethics purity of origin is the master
word and is known as sincerity. As no amount of external control and scrutiny
can ever fathom the depth of one's heart, it is only the actor who knows whether
he is being sincere or not: his integrity and sincerity cannot be judged with
complete certainty from without. Therefore, reformation starts within one's
self; it is voluntary, and coercion plays hardly any part in it. A system
seeking to make people righteous by force is evil even if all of them observe
the prescribed standard of behaviour because they do so out of fear against
their nature and not through sincerity.
Role of sincerity
When sincerity becomes an integral
part of motivation, man develops moral will which demands that ego does not
operate to its exclusive benefit at the expense of others but performs an act
because it is right. A person who has developed a moral will no longer treats
morality as a matter of personal convenience. He begins to believe in the
ascendancy of moral values, and executes them as his duty. To him virtue means
virtue in practice; courage and justice are not a cult of the mind but realities
which must be displayed actively when situations demanding courage and justice
arise.
Ethical mechanism
So elaborate and excellent is man's
ethical mechanism that there is yet another superior called
"conscience" which supervises the working of the moral will. Why does
moral will need supervision? It is because infallibility is not built into man's
nature. A person with moral will may not do wrong purposely but he is likely to
behave erroneously through misunderstanding or adverse circumstances. What
eventually regulates any good person's behaviour is his conscience which
operates invisibly.
Conscience
What is conscience? It is not
possible to define it exactly. However, its existence cannot be denied. Suppose,
under egoistic pressure, you deprived someone of his rights to advance your own
cause. One day you are sitting happily but the concinnity of your mind is
suddenly changed into a torment by the flashback of the event that filled you
with delight a long time ago. Conversely, you have undergone pangs of poverty
all your life to observe the principle that usurpation is evil though the
chances to get rich unfairly were abundantly available to you. The sudden
thought of suffering for the sake of piety changes your sorrow into hilarity.
What is it that has turned your pleasure into pain and pain into pleasure
without an apparent cause? It is conscience which works through the apparatus of
remorse and relaxation. Your remorse is the result of the critical judgement of
conscience for usurpation and your relaxation springs from its approval of the
correct deeds of your moral will. Thus conscience is the self-judgement of one's
ego based on complete sincerity and serves as the true criterion of ones pain
and pleasure; it is totally subjective and immune from ostentation. When
conscience passes judgement on your past behaviour, it is called "syneidesis"
but when it acts as a guide to your future behaviour, it is known as "synteresis".
Synteresis
Preservation of self or ego is the
fountain of psychology because our basic behaviour is centred around it. Since
selfishness is not godliness, man must raise his individuality to the level
where synteresis guides his motives and actions. This is an act of
self-purification and solely connected with one's sincerity and personal
integrity which are beyond the examination of outsiders. The man or woman who
has developed this virtue is on his or her way to become a part of Godhead, or
achieve salvation.
I stated earlier that both
individuality and society are extensions of the ego. Though I am an
individualist, I think that society is as indispensible to the growth of
individuality, as the Himalayan peak is inducive to snowfall, equator is to
scorching heat and moonlight is to serenity. This fact, necessitates the study
of sociology.
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