Perception of the self.

Psychological Research Studies That
Figure Out The Perception Of The Self.

As much as we’d like to think we know ourselves and our own minds, in actual fact there is a lot that we don’t know, are yet to discover and sometimes may not ever know. The human mind works in mysterious ways and the endless studies into different aspects can only widen our understanding, not complete it. Psychologists have made a huge impact on our understanding of human behaviours and how we view the world around us, but there is much we still have to learn.

Saying that, there are a lot of surprising studies that will change your perception of yourself and, hopefully, will help you get to know the human mind a little better:

1. Stanford Prison Experiment:-
This experiment is said to be the most famous psychology study in history and showcased how social environments can affect human behaviour. The study placed 24 healthy undergraduates with no criminal background into a mock prison, asking some to act as guards and the rest to act as prisoners. After six days (the experiment was scheduled to run for two weeks), it had to be cut short due to the violent behaviour of the guards.

Phillip Zimbardo, who ran the experiment, commented on the behaviour, “The guards escalated their aggression against the prisoners, stripping them naked, putting bags over their heads, and then finally had them engage in increasingly humiliating sexual activities.”

This study taught us that even those of us who are declared psychologically “normal” can demonstrate an evil streak when placed in certain environments. How do you think you’d behave in the same situation?

2. Wooden Door Experiment:-
Another famous experiment where college students were targeted by a researcher who asked for directions. Halfway through the directions, workmen holding a wooden door passed between the two having the discussion, switching places with the individual who was asking for the directions. Half of the participants didn’t even notice that the person asking for directions had completely changed. This demonstrates how the human mind can experience “change blindness” and how we may not be aware when something is happening right in front of our very eyes.

3. Milgram’s Authoritarian Experiment:-
After the Second World War, Stanley Milgram wanted to understand why Nazi criminals committed the crimes they did and if the authority figure had something to do with it. The “teacher and learner” experiment had one researcher instructing a participant to produce electric shocks of high voltage on another human being in front of them, simply because they were asked to do so. 65% of participants administered the highest possible voltage of 450-volts when asked to do so by an authority figure, despite seeming distressed and uncomfortable at doing so. How do you perform around authority figures? Would you cause harm to others if you were asked to do so by somebody in power?

4. The Harvard Grant Study:-
Spanning 75-years, this study followed 268 male Harvard graduates at various points in their life to record data on various aspects of their lives. The conclusion of the experiment is that love really does make us happy and fills us with a sense of life-satisfaction that we don’t get from other areas of our lives. Perhaps one of the most uplifting stories, especially since one participant started the study with the lowest rate of future stability and a past of attempted suicide, but at the end of the study, he was one of the happiest – the reason being he spent his life looking for love.

5. Cognitive Dissonance Experiments:-
One of the most popular theories and areas within psychology, cognitive dissonance is the idea that humans cannot cope with conflicting thoughts, emotions or values so experience some mental distress.

There have been many experiments into this area, but one of the most interesting was carried out by Leon Festinger, where he asked participants to complete long, mundane tasks, then offered half of them $1, and the other half $20 to tell waiting participants that they enjoyed the task. The $1 group felt the need to justify the time spent by saying it was a fun task, whereas the higher-paid group believed they had sufficient justification for completing the task. Summarized, we tend to tell ourselves lies to justify the events that happen throughout our lives, even simple ones such as mundane tasks.

There are many more experiments that demonstrate just how little we know about ourselves and our minds as humans, these studies only scratch the surface. Which do you agree with most? Are there any more studies that you have heard about that taught you something new about yourself?

   

Need of the world and duty of humanity.

The need of the world: -

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, courage, self respect, independence, fairness in the vision, fearlessness, intelligence, and good hopes for future. We don’t need to be called as miserable sinners, God fearing, ugly and bad persons who are born as a result of curse or execration.

A good world needs not to hanker after the past. We do not need looking back all the times towards the past that in dead. The world has need of a philosophy or a ‘religion’ which promote life, be scientific in nature, provide happiness to all the creatures and yield emancipation to the followers.

In addition to these the new religion should have freedom from superstitions, fallacious imaginations, narrow outlook, frivolous gods, violence and bloodshed. It must have a definite aim which is much more higher and provide valuable in real human values, It must be capable of preserving men from weariness or tiredness permanently and the feeling that all is vanity or worthlessness.

If life is to be fully human, it must serve some end which is outside human life. Some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God, truth, omniscience, universal love or beauty etc.

Those who best promote life don’t have life for their purpose; rather they aim at what seems like a gradual incarnation, a bringing into our human existence of something eternal. Something beyond strife, failure, time and death. We must aim “to contact with eternity”. And we need a ‘religion’ which is true in sense and capable to provide a contact to the eternity.

What we must do? : -

We must therefore find, devise and develop a “True Religion” which is almost near to truth if not completely truthful. Then we must practice its Holy and divine principles faithfully and respectfully, so that we are enabled to cure the religious disease or disorder pervading throughout the world.

We have to work hard and wholeheartedly towards the acquirement of ultimate aim of the human life through the application of ‘True Religion’ and its subordinates like knowledge, love, courage, independence, self-respect, fearlessness, intelligence and divinity.

The Nature Of the Soul Is Eternal.

The nature of the soul is eternal.

We take birth in the universe with entire ignorance into our brains. Slowly we get some knowledge of the world from our milieu and environment. The finite and selfish nature of the self, causes our body to move such that, it is always after satisfaction of bodily desires through the use of materialistic substances and it does not care much to know its real nature and reunion with God, The Creator and Sustainer of life.

It is the responsibility of religion to teach the humankind to act in such a way that along with the satisfaction of individual desires, the man also exerts for his emancipation. The human lifespan is about unstable nature and time of death is unsure. Hence it turns necessary for human beings to put their endeavors for the attainment of self recognition and thereby emancipating their soul from worldly miseries and acquire eternal bliss.

The world today is in keen need of a system or a method which confirms to the scientific standards and whose modus operandi is acceptable to the people without wondering. As well as the human fellowship is in severe need of such a divine system, which when applied to an individual or a group of people would result in the acquirement of both the worlds and godly aims. The most significant weakness of today’s religious systems working in the universe is that they are perplexed. It is not easily inferred that which one of the operating system is true and correct to accompany.

We examine in our everyday life that the babies are getting born, growing up, becomes young, get old, and ultimately die one day. In applying a thought over this fact, one wonders what is the life? Who am I, really? From where I came into the world? Where would I go to? What will happen to me after my death? What is the life? Why it is gifted to me as well as to other creatures? Is there someone who manipulates the life and its activities? If yes, then who is He and what is his genuine nature and form? How he could be pleased to build our lives better? What is the true objective of the life? And how to live and achieve that aim?

Answers to all these questions, elucidations of the mystical nature of the universe and other entities have been given by various personal including various incarnations of the God,  which ultimately resulted in a faith which has expounded some kind of rules and precepts to follow.

‘God’ and ‘Soul’ are the only two recognized  eternal things so far and everything except these two is thought,  believed, claimed and established to be transitory. Even these entities could also be proved to be elusive and fallacious and these two could be proved to dissolve into an entity known as ‘nothingness’. This nothingness is a state of cognizance that is able to absorb and suck completely into it and then emerge suddenly into life out of nowhere and start performing every activity which it desires. In this manner each and every thing present in this universe could be proven illusory and a mere fallacy.

Nevertheless, we observe that universe remains as it is after the death of individuals. This proves (or at least tries to exhibit) That ‘nature’ is eternal. But the phenomenon of decaying which is applicable to everybody, when applied to whole universe proves that the world also has its life, though it is much more than a human being which is merely about a hundred years.

Since creature should have come from somewhere, it is thought that the soul is eternal and suffers transmigration until its liberation from the bondage of life and death. And since we are not much potent and always find ourselves impotent before an unseen power controlling destiny of creatures, phenomenon of ‘God’ comes into existence, who is considered to be omnipotent and all capable to destroy our miseries and grieves. Hence, only the Soul and the Supreme Soul remain to be conceived as eternal and nothing other than these two is everlasting.

Signification of Religion in life.

Significance of Religion in life :-

In the past, religion had helped in the spread of education, had saved peoples from frustration, had developed the spirit of toleration, had added rituals to make ceremonies charming, had helped in union with God, had helped in purification of Souls, had provided a sense of equality, had ended narrow outlooks, had developed the power of integration and cooperation, had added beauty to the universe through architecture and fine arts, and finally it had helped in stopping blood shed and violence. Religion had been a good instrument for helping needy and poor persons.

Religion is the tool by which a man can become ‘God’ or religion makes a man god. It is the duty of religion to save him from all other worldly miseries and ultimately provide the eternal bliss.

Religion reduces the effects of sins, carried over to this life, from previous lives and purifies the Soul, so that it is enabled to get contacted with the divine powers. lt purifies the behavior of the individual and elevates his social status and increases self confidence. It increases the patience of individual, truthfulness, love, wisdom, faith in God. equanimity, purity of thought and action and prudence, whereas violence, desire of theft etc. are eliminated which are sources of many miseries.

It develops an impartial view to the servitude. love and vision. In this way religion helps an individual to uplift himself from a lower level to the level of gods, from finite to infinite and from local to universal.

Nature of the Soul and it's Bondage.

Nature of the soul and its bondage.

Nature and function of the Soul and the body: -

Creatures are thought to possess a body inside which is pervading a Soul. The phenomenon of the Soul comes into existence owing to the fact that on the death of the creature there finds something lacking. It appears as if a pot moved throughout its life due to some hidden power and now that power had stopped itself functioning. And then that the body, even looking same as before, does not possess that functioning power. That power which causes a physical structure to function and makes it look alive is known as ‘Soul’ of that body.

This Soul is believed to possess many bodies inside a body. They are the Physical Body, Vital Body, Mental Body, Intellectual Body and the hidden innermost essence of life, Bliss. A compounding of all these is then terminated as ‘Soul’. The physical structure could be thought of as an instrument through which this Soul satisfies its desires and communicates with the external world in various ways or it may be thought of as the outer casing of the Soul. Therefore the “Bliss” is the nature of the Soul, which is pervading throughout the other bodies in the universe. Bliss is the genuine nature of human beings.

The finite and the infinite nature of Soul:-

The Human Soul is strange and exhibits wonderful characteristics. It owns the qualities of God and a brute both and between these there lies quality of human. The finite Soul is self centered and infinite Soul is impartial. The finite Soul exhibits characteristics of smaller visions of here and now, love to the owns and hatred to the others, it essentially separates one man from another and rest of the universe it consist of self centered thoughts, desires, distortions, errors, strives, feelings of mine and yours, small love to allies, no love to enemies, untruth in thought, injustice in action, has a life with boundaries and barriers, is private, based on principle of division and results in essential conflict, desire of self preservation, builds prison-walls around it, endeavors to restrain from freedom (i.e. emancipation), aims dominion or lordship and thus is a source of all miseries and grieves.

Whereas the infinite Soul is universal, impartial, aims at the good, give love to all, leads to truth in thought, justice in action and universal love in feeling, has a life without barriers, embraces the whole creation. It is independent of here, now and me, it is the principle of union in the world, provides a ways to a more complete life, it gets around the prison-walls built about the finite self. It is liberal, peaceful, devoid of conflicts and disturbances, gives deeper insight to the individual, provides a harmonious life, infinite wisdom and love.

Nature of bondage: -

The savage man, knowing that the individual life is brief and impotent, is always terrified by the fact of death. The finite life of man is one, particular, finite, self centered, is attached to the body and views the world from the standpoint of the here and now. All those loves and hatreds which are established upon some service to the self belong to the finite life. The beloved of man and woman and the love of parents and children, when they don’t go beyond the promptings of the instincts are still part of animal nature. They see the universe as grouped about one point, the single struggling self. So the finite part of our life contains all that makes the individual man essentially separate from other men and from the rest of the universe.

All those thoughts and desires that cannot in their nature are dealt by the inhabitants of a different body. All the distortions that make error and the entire insistent claim that leads strife. The finite nature of the ego, is the principle of division of the universe and seek the welfare of the body and its descendants. The finite self impelled by the desire of self preservation builds prison—walls round the finite character of our nature and endeavor to restrain it from that free life in the whole which constitutes its being. The finite self aims at dominion and it is the major cause of bondage and slavery of the soul.