The major contribution to the field of psychology both in the form of knowledge about the thinking and behavioral patterns and methods of challenging their maladaptive patterns came from the Bhagavad gita which has eighteen chapters. The first six chapters are devoted to explanation of “sat” or the existence aspect of reality.
These chapters explain how feelings differentiate the function aspect of a man from a machine. These chapters also describe how feelings are concomitant with life and how these feelings undergo modifications from like to dislike, friendship to enmity, fulfillment to frustration, admiration to jealousy and support to opposition and vice versa. Expression such as like, friendship, fulfillment admiration and support are all the positive aspect of the faculty of feeling, while dislike enmity, frustration jealousy and opposition are all its negative expressions. According to gita the positive aspects of emotion promote growth and evolution while the negative ones retard.
The next six chapters are devoted to how man has inclination to move towards attaining “anandham brahmam” the supreme bliss where he reaches a status where nothing is important to him. Even though Bhagavad gita explains it as a person’s attraction towards god which happens through purification of emotions where human beings are not driven by need satisfaction approach, there is a lot of explanation about awareness, cognition and how the coexistence of emotions and cognition in a balanced manner add luster and brightness to human life.
To a very great extent these explanations can be associated with various components of emotional intelligence, the self awareness, self management, social awareness and social management. According to Bhagavad gita every living being is aware of its own existence and it is evident that this awareness is born out of cognition. There may be variation in the intensity of cognition and the difference between one life and other is the degree of cognition.
These six chapters tries to explain the link between emotion and cognition. Cognitions as it is in its raw form is rigid like hard iron and experience / expression of emotions is the process of melting it to become soft and gain luster. Gita states that when emotions get purified then cognition get sharpened while impure emotions lead to confusion and internal conflicts which becomes the source for stress fear and anxiety. just like love and sympathy between two persons lead to a better understanding of each other and creates a sense of affinity and strengthening of relationship, the link between love and knowledge can strengthen the relationship on an individual with his internal “ self” which in turn leads to better knowledge and awareness about self and this awareness becomes the source of solutions to most of the problem encountered by an individual. According to gita intelligence, awareness, cognition, consciousness and conscience are the same in a way that the later is the evolution of the immediate preceding.
The last six chapters describes the path of knowledge. These chapters describe how with increasing knowledge a person can proportionally increase identifying himself and his surroundings in a better and clearer manner which can lead him in the direction of achieving satisfaction and glory. The knowledge contributes to the purification of the faculty of understanding which include intelligence, awareness, cognition, consciousness and conscience until it reaches its culmination with the innate knowledge as a result of which perfection of the individual becomes perfect or in terms of Humanitarian psychology the mans drive to attain his ideal life gets completed. When completion of this process ends the need based drive in person making him mentally controlled and balanced in all types of environment. These chapters also explain how this process can be over shadowed by lethargic attitude, disuse, negative emotions and experiences, hampering the goal directed behavior. These chapter also explain the need to overcome this shadowing and methods of doing it.
To be continued............
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