BASIC PSYCHOLOGY & BRAIN FUNCTIONS
- Defining my beliefs boxes
- Defining other people’s beliefs and their boxes
- Superiority and inferiority, one is nurtured while the other is being suppressed
Competition conditions behavior. A success provokes others
to anger. Sense and wisdom overpowers mediocrity. Any subjective beliefs, when
they are being threatened with a better or even higher knowledge, begin to totter
therefore one makes haste to support them all the more. When one senses that
one’s own way of thinking is being overshadowed, one often experiences discomfort and
anger, which is found in the Limbic part of the brain. The central cortex of the
brain seems to be confused; for then crucial choices must be made as to which way is
better; my old or the new way, which now I am confronted with.
Because of one’s own beliefs one has developed an exclusive property, I call it a box. This box is like a garden one cultivates, so it would be futile to call it ‘a jungle full of weeds’ because that only goads one to anger. One takes pride in the cultivation of this garden and that pride is an emotion lodged in one’s soul. This pleasurable sensation stimulates brain functions and it desires to repeat it. So, when one is being “threatened” with something new—especially when it's making more sense than that which one held in esteem—one either retreats or scrambles, seeks cover, or goes on an offensive.
If pride influences one’s choices in the central cortex of
the brain; and one finds pleasure in that pride, as in supremacist sentiments;
then it would be very difficult - if not completely impossible - to alter one’s
old and well-established way of thinking. The pleasure of feeling superior (against those one sees as inferior), national pride, and a sense of racial or some club belonging is enormously strong.
Supremacy works not only on trashing others, but hating anything else; of course, excluding self. Into this sentiment, especially the German people gave into during the Nazi times. It’s just too pleasurable to give it up. Those pleasures still surface from time to time, but most suppress them.
In USA this addiction to supremacy is also quite evident, from KKK to skinheads and other trashy elements, but these are those who let their sentiments out. There are many others who keep it all bottled up inside, but let it all out only in politics.
By constantly suppressing those volatile emotional properties, which often condition our brain functions, we permit * fear, anger and hate to damage the human brain, sometimes irreparably.
* "How God changes your brain" Andrew Newberg MD
[Excerpt] If you allow anger and fear to dominate, you will lose the neurological ability to think logically and act compassionately toward others. In fact, it is nearly impossible to find peace and serenity if your mind is preoccupied by negative, anxious, or hateful thoughts.
Excessive anger or fear can permanently disrupt many structures and functions in both your body and your brain. These destructive emotions interfere with memory storage and cognitive accuracy, which in turn will disrupt our ability to properly evaluate and respond to social situations. Anger makes people indiscriminately punitive, blameful, pessimistic, and unilaterally careless in their logic and reasoning skills. Furthermore, anger encourages your brain to defend your beliefs—be they right or wrong—and when this happens, you’ll be more likely to feel prejudice toward others. You’ll inaccurately perceive anger in other people’s faces, and this will increase your own distrust and fear. It’s an insidious process that feeds on itself, and it can influence your behavior for very long periods of time. Eventually, it will even damage important structures in your brain. [End of excerpt]
Review: "Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman give us a magnificent, comprehensive explanation of how spiritual beliefs and experiences enhance changes in our brains and yield better health and well-being. They bring science and religion closer together." - Herbert Benson, M.D., author of The Relaxation Response.
Wisdom is never superior for it works on the principle of sharing and hence education. It does not mean that only one is wise while others must sit quietly and listen.
Supremacy works not only on trashing others, but hating anything else; of course, excluding self. Into this sentiment, especially the German people gave into during the Nazi times. It’s just too pleasurable to give it up. Those pleasures still surface from time to time, but most suppress them.
In USA this addiction to supremacy is also quite evident, from KKK to skinheads and other trashy elements, but these are those who let their sentiments out. There are many others who keep it all bottled up inside, but let it all out only in politics.
By constantly suppressing those volatile emotional properties, which often condition our brain functions, we permit * fear, anger and hate to damage the human brain, sometimes irreparably.
* "How God changes your brain" Andrew Newberg MD
[Excerpt] If you allow anger and fear to dominate, you will lose the neurological ability to think logically and act compassionately toward others. In fact, it is nearly impossible to find peace and serenity if your mind is preoccupied by negative, anxious, or hateful thoughts.
Excessive anger or fear can permanently disrupt many structures and functions in both your body and your brain. These destructive emotions interfere with memory storage and cognitive accuracy, which in turn will disrupt our ability to properly evaluate and respond to social situations. Anger makes people indiscriminately punitive, blameful, pessimistic, and unilaterally careless in their logic and reasoning skills. Furthermore, anger encourages your brain to defend your beliefs—be they right or wrong—and when this happens, you’ll be more likely to feel prejudice toward others. You’ll inaccurately perceive anger in other people’s faces, and this will increase your own distrust and fear. It’s an insidious process that feeds on itself, and it can influence your behavior for very long periods of time. Eventually, it will even damage important structures in your brain. [End of excerpt]
Review: "Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman give us a magnificent, comprehensive explanation of how spiritual beliefs and experiences enhance changes in our brains and yield better health and well-being. They bring science and religion closer together." - Herbert Benson, M.D., author of The Relaxation Response.
Wisdom is never superior for it works on the principle of sharing and hence education. It does not mean that only one is wise while others must sit quietly and listen.
The character of
Jesus
[John 13:12-16] Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. (Speaking of God the Father who sent His Son.)
Correlate it with this verse: [John 14:28] I go to the
Father, for the Father is greater than I.
Jesus was very humble and He wanted us to have His glory and the same oneness with the Father as he has (John 17). He wanted us to do even greater works than He
had done (John 14:12).
And finally He said this: [Luke 6:40] A blind man cannot
guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A pupil is not
above his teacher; but everyone, after
he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.
So, there comes an arrival and one can even become greater
than his or her teacher, but the way about it is not artificial in any way - by putting on a sentiment like a garment - pretending to be someone on the outside when one knows the reality inside. This struggle, to impress others and sell oneself as important prevents one from obtaining the real and true.
Self-criticism
If one manages to arrive at this momentous stance and actually be willing to tear down the old structures and is ready to build a new then that would be indeed a great achievement. However, that can only happen when one recognizes the self-made prison and hates it.
Humility is nothing more than making oneself into a hollow
empty vessel thus being readied to be filled with something better and higher than
what one had before. Only then one would open a door to God’s Spirit in order to
go further; only then God’s Spirit has the permission to bring one into the
blessed freedom of which Jesus spoke in John 8. One is no longer in some established
box, theological or otherwise.
This was happening when Jesus conversed with those proud
scribes and teachers of the Law. They could not come down from their lofty
seats of supremacy, much less acknowledge the superiority of Jesus’ sayings and
His reason, yet they saw it as one superiority against another superiority. A threat. That’s sad, because
it is all very much subjective and a self-defined way of thinking.
Jesus was pushing their buttons until their cannons fired
off. They accused Jesus of being a Samaritan and having a demon (John 8:48), of
being a charlatan and of making Himself to be God (John 10:31-34) while in
their own subjective estimation He was merely a man. They accused Him of
casting out demons (like they did through their special techniques) through a
Beelzebub (Luke 11:15). At first Jesus reasoned with them, and even went
on a defensive, but then He dropped it altogether and left them alone. But those pots kept boiling until the time of Jesus' crucifixion.
His disciples said, “Do You know that the Pharisees were
offended when they heard this statement?” (Matthew 15:12-14) Jesus had enough
of those useless theological squabbles, “But He answered and said, “Every plant
which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them alone; they
are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will
fall into a pit.”
Now, that was not nice, was it? There comes a time when one
leaves alone those ‘stuck in their own’ - although there is nothing of our own
- and one moves on to even a brighter light. A self-made theological God is
only a god.
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