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Memory is a function of subconscious mind.
Memory is used in two senses. We say, Mr. John has got a good memory.
Here it means that Mr. John’s capacity of the mind to store up its past
experiences is very good. Sometimes we say, .I have no memory of that
incident.. Here, you cannot bring up to the surface of the conscious mind,
in its original form, the incident that took place some years ago. It is an
act of remembering. You do not get any new knowledge through memory. It is
only a reproduction.
When you desire to
remember a thing, you will have to make a psychic exertion. You will have to
go up and down into the depths of the different levels of sub consciousness
and then pick up the right thing from a curious mixture of multifarious
irrelevant matter. Just as the railway sorter in the Railway Mail Service
takes up the right letter by moving the hand up and down along the different
pigeon-holes, so also the sorter subconscious mind goes up and down along
the pigeon-holes in the subconscious mind and brings the right thing to the
level of normal consciousness. The subconscious mind can pick up the right
thing from a heap of various matters.
Our mental processes play a complex and dramatic role in our lives. The
brain weighs less than 3% of our total weight but burns 25% of our total
oxygen intake. It is a busy, powerful, phenomenal, mysterious place. We are
what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts,
we make the world. said -The Buddha
Humans have always, I suppose, been
fascinated by the mind. Yet, the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry
only started studying the mind or cognition about 100 years ago. The
universe of the mind is still a dark, vast, unexplored place.
It mystifies us.
Yet, it is a region of great promise.
If we could learn to develop our values,
master basic psychological principles, and increase our self-awareness and
motivation, great strides might be made in self-control or
self-actualization.
Some theorists think the mental image of ourselves (or of our potential)
must change first, then the behavior will change; others think it works in
the opposite direction, i.e. behavior changes first, then the self-concept
(I think both ways may work).
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When minds study themselves or each other, a number of paradoxes appear:
While we know much about our mental processes, there is far more we don't
know, and, as individuals, there are some things about our minds we don't
seem to want to know. Likewise, while the brain is a fantastic sensing,
remembering, thinking, problem-solving machine, it still, without our
awareness, makes many foolish mistakes.
Clearly, the brain and "mental processes" are
involved in everything we humans do.
Only we know who we are--what we have
intended to do and actually done, what we have thought and felt, and what we
have hoped for. Our "self " is a life-long accumulation of impressions. How
we see and evaluate our "selves" and others' selves has a tremendous impact
on self-acceptance, self-control, and acceptance of others.
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