Healing Thinking and Being
(Book manuscript by Rolf
Sattler)
Introduction
The Need for Healing
Deep wounds have been inflicted on many of
us, our society, and our planet. To heal these wounds, we
need to heal our body, emotions, thinking, and our whole
being. The importance of healing our body and emotions is
generally recognized. But why do we have to
heal our
thinking and what does
healing thinking entail? To answer this question,
we have to
examine the role of thinking in our society, demonstrate how
common ways of thinking inflict deep wounds, and then show
how more holistic ways of thinking can contribute to the
healing of these wounds.
The Prevalence of Thinking in our Culture
In our culture thinking is of utmost
importance. We think almost all the time. Even when we don’t
want to think, thinking often continues. And our thinking
determines or influences our actions.
To understand the role of the mind and thinking let us have a
brief look at Jean Gebser’s scheme (Gebser, J. 1984. The Ever-Present
Origin. Athens,
Ohio: Ohio University Press). He distinguished the
following five structures of consciousness that followed
each other during human evolution: the archaic, magic,
mythic, mental, and integral structures. We are at the
verge of entering the integral structure. However, the
vast majority of the world’s population is still in the
mental or even mythic structure. The mental structure
began to establish itself about 2500 years ago. This
structure emphasizes the importance of the mind, thought,
and thinking to such an extent that Aristotle, the
influential Greek philosopher, characterized the human
species as the thinking animal. Aristotle has had a
lasting influence on Western society that has infected the
whole world. In the middle ages, Saint Thomas Aquinas
referred to Aristotle as the philosopher and incorporated his views
into church doctrine. As a result even the church
emphasized thought and thinking. Later on, during the
Enlightenment, more appropriately called the age of
reason, thinking reached its ultimate supremacy, and to a
great extent this supremacy of reason and thinking has
lasted to the present time. There has been, however, some
reaction: in the 19th century, romanticism embraced
feeling, emotion, and intuition; in the second half of the
19th century and the first half of the 20th century,
existentialism reminded us that the experience of existence goes deeper than mere
thinking about it; and in the second half of the 20th
century and in the 21st century, the New Age Movement also
underlines the importance of our non-rational faculties
and to some extent has become even anti-rational.
Thus, today in Western and
Westernized countries, the alternative culture such as the
New Age Movement emphasizes feeling, emotion, intuition
and other non-rational faculties and to some extent
devalues or even rejects thinking, whereas mainstream
society continues to embrace the supremacy of the thinking
mind.
To some extent the alternative culture has been a healthy
reminder of our non-rational faculties and thus has allowed
us to value the heart besides the brain, and with regard to
the brain its right side besides the left one. However, the
extreme devaluation of the thinking mind has been not only
exaggerated but also illusory - illusory because emotions are
a combination of body sensations (feelings) and thoughts;
hence, they are not free of thought (see, e.g., Shinzen
Young. 1997.The
Science of Enlightenment. Boulder, CO: Sounds True). Unfortunately,
the implication of thought in emotions is often not
recognized.
The
major focus of this book is on thought and thinking.
However,
since thought
is implied in emotions, the investigation of thought and
thinking is also relevant to emotions. And since thinking
also influences the body, thinking is even relevant to the
body. Thus, contrary to the extreme devaluation of thinking
within certain circles of the New Age Movement, thinking is
not only important in itself but also for emotions and the
body. Hence, harmful thinking is not only harmful to the
mind, but also to emotions and the body. And healing thinking
is not only healing the mind, but also emotions and the body.
Harmful Thinking, Healing
Thinking, and Healthy Thinking
Harmful thinking is
thinking that inflicts wounds and sickness. Healing thinking
contributes to the healing of wounds and sickness; healthy
thinking prevents their occurrence. Healthy thinking and
healing thinking are more holistic ways of thinking that are
less fragmenting then Aristotelian logic.
Thinking in terms of Aristotelian logic that is still
widespread not only in mainstream society but also to a great
extent in science, can be harmful, if it is not balanced by
healing ways of thinking. One important feature of
Aristotelian logic is thinking in terms of either/or: either
this or that, either black or white, either true or false,
either good or bad, etc. Although this kind of thinking can
be useful, it may inflict wounds because it cuts the whole
into mutually exclusive opposites that can become
antagonistic and destructive. Thinking in terms of
Yin-Yang can heal these wounds. Since Yin
contains also Yang and vice versa, the opposites are
connected and fused. The world is no longer split apart.
There is both/and:
in any situation there is both black and white, truth and
falsity, goodness and evil, etc. One of the opposites may
predominate so much that the other is barely noticeable. But
even then there is still a connection and this connection
restores wholeness that creates holiness and health. Holism
(wholeness), holiness, and health are intimately
interconnected and also have the same etymological root.
In addition to Yin-Yang thinking, other healing ways of
non-Aristotelian thinking such as fuzzy
logic,
both/and logic, non-identity,
Buddhist logic and Jain logic will be explored in this book and their
relevance to many aspects our lives, society and the planet
will be demonstrated. However, since thinking -
healthy thinking, healing thinking, and harmful thinking - is
only one aspect of human existence, of Being, it has to be
related to other aspects of life such as feelings (body
sensations), emotions, intuition, meditation and other ways
of religious or spiritual experience.
Being
After an interlude on poetic and playful language that can
more or less transcend the strictures of Aristotelian logic,
I begin the second part of this book by pointing to what is
beyond thinking, the thinking mind and language - the
unnamable. Then I present the AQAL map by
Ken Wilber, which
is an integral vision of the unnamable and the namable. I
conclude with the dynamic mandala that I devised to emphasize the
multiplicity of different complementary perspectives on
human and kosmic existence.
Both Wilber’s map and the dynamic mandala emphasize that
beyond manifest reality is the unmanifest source, beyond the
word is silence, beyond reason is the unnamable mystery. In
our culture that has been so much shaped by the mental
structure of consciousness, mystery is often not appreciated
or even denounced as unworthy of thinking human beings.
However, sages and seers, and even some
philosophers and scientists, have always been aware of realms
beyond the thinking mind. For example, Albert Einstein, the
great physicist and philosopher, wrote: “The most beautiful
thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source
of all true art and science... To know that what is
impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the
highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull
faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -
this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true
religiousness” (Albert Einstein, quoted by Ravindra, R. 2000.
Science and the Sacred. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical
Publishing House).
In the unnamable mystery
of Being we are all united, and through awareness of this
unity conflict can be transcended, peace can be attained, and
healing can occur.
Continue with Chapter 1 on
Ways of Thinking
or return to Table of
Contents of this book ms on Healing
Thinking and Being.
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