Gaining Objectivity - 1

 Gaining Objectivity 1 - UNDERSTANDING THE WAYS OF THE MIND

We gain objectivity when our perception is in keeping with life as it is, things as they are – which includes people and all situations. An understanding of how the mind works reveals in which areas we are prone to lose our objectivity.

Here is a situation. A dear friend is taken severely ill. He is placed in the ICU and there are severe restrictions to meeting him. I have come down to meet him and I am told that I may not be able to see him. When I hear this I feel agitated and distressed. Why? Because my need for connection and well-being is not met.

You will notice that this situation has been analysed in terms of Event, Feeling, Need (Demand or Binding Like/Dislike). We would need to go one step further which is to understand the belief or thought behind the need, because it the belief behind the need that triggers our feelings and not really the event.

Our beliefs are formed in keeping with our life experiences, our value structure, our education and understanding, our assumptions and inferences. Our assumptions (or rules of living) and way of inferring can be whacky – way out  of reality – in which case our beliefs will also not be in keeping with reality – and in which case, in case of unfavourable events, we would be prone to much emotional suffering because of erroneous evaluations which are based on our inferences and assumptions.

In Vedanta, this emotional suffering constitutes mala or impurity – because it keeps you out of touch with the truth of your fullness. So it is important to look into the ways of our mind and become familiar with how we infer and see if it is not suffering from distortion. Cognitive Therapy has a good understanding of distorted thinking. Let’s look at some of the distortions in our ways of inference  :-

·          Black and white thinking - Seeing things in extremes, with no middle ground - good or bad, perfect versus useless, success or failure, right against wrong, moral versus immoral, and so on. Also known as ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING.

·          Filtering -Seeing all that is wrong with oneself or the world, while ignoring any positives.

·          Over-generalisation- Building up one thing about oneself or one's circumstances and ending up thinking that it represents the whole situation. For example: "Everything's going wrong", "Because of 
this mistake, I'm a total failure". Or, similarly, believing that some thing which has happened once or twice is happening all the time, or that it will be a never-ending pattern: "I'll always be a failure", "No-one will ever want to love me", and the like.

·          Mind-reading -Making guesses about what other people are thinking, such as: "She ignored me on purpose", or "He's mad at me".

·          Fortune-telling - Treating beliefs about the future as though they were actual realities rather than mere predictions, or example: "I'll be depressed forever", "Things can only get worse".

·          Emotional reasoning - Thinking that because we feel a certain way, this is how it really is: "I feel like a failure, so I must be one", "If I'm angry, you must have done something to make me so", and the like.

·          Personalising -Assuming that something is directly connected with oneself, but without evidence: "Everyone is looking at me", "It must have been me that made her feel bad", and so on.

We not only make inferences about what is happening we then evaluate what they mean to us in terms of are they ‘helpful’, ‘hurtful’ or neutral. Our evaluations can also be distorted when they cause us to :-

1.     Catastrophise : This mainly takes on two forms :-  We  'AWFULISE'  - which is exaggerating the consequences of past, present or future events; seeing something as: awful; terrible; horrible; the worst that could happen. It often leads to the other form which is  'CAN'T-STAND-IT-ITIS' - the idea that one can't bear (put up with; withstand; overcome) some circumstance or event. Both types serve the purpose of making us feel worse about our problems.

2.     Demand (musts and shoulds) This refers to the way we may use unconditional shoulds and absolutistic musts - believing that certain things must or must not happen, and that certain conditions (for example success, love, or approval) are absolute necessities. Demanding implies that certain 'LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE' exist and must be adhered to. Demands can be directed either toward oneself or others or life in general. Our demands form the core of mala  or antahkarana-ashuddhi.  We have MUSTS on ourself, on others and for life in general.

3.     People-rating (putting a label or value on others) People-rating refers to the process of evaluating one's entire self (or someone else's) on the basis of a particular trait, behaviour or action according to some standard of value or worth leading to an evaluation of the whole person eg. "I did a bad thing, therefore I am a bad person."  In other words, it is trying to determine the total value of a person or judging their worth. It represents an overgeneralization. People-rating can lead to reactions like self-downing, depression, defensiveness, grandiosity, hostility, or over-concern with approval and disapproval.

How we react to specific events depends on our underlying beliefs or RULES OF LIVING about life. Behind most of our unhelpful emotions and behaviours are a small core of beliefs that our not in keeping with the empirical world or  Ishvara srshti. A few of these beliefs are listed below :-

·          I need love and approval from those significant to me - and I must avoid disapproval from any source.

·          To be worthwhile as a person I must achieve, succeed at whatever I do, and make no mistakes.

·          People should always do the right thing. When they behave obnoxiously, unfairly or selfishly, they must be
blamed and punished.

·          Things must be the way I want them to be, otherwise life will be intolerable.

·          My unhappiness is caused by things that are outside my control, so there is little I can do to feel any better.

These rules here all represent absolutes held in the thinking. They  cannot be sustained or fulfilled. They are a mismatch with empirical reality and what can be delivered to them by empirical reality. When these rules or inner thinking are not met by the empirical reality, the person who holds those beliefs, will become emotionally disturbed which would also affect their behaviour. When the person is highly emotionally disturbed he/ she cannot be objective.

An understanding of what constitutes impurity is the first step that helps us understand what all needs to be taken care of to gain the objectivity necessary for owning up the freedom of the self that is revealed in Vedanta.

Once mala  taken care of more or less, there is a great deal of inner freedom, there is an inner lightness and spaciousness. Then there is discrimination between what is timeless and what is not – and a committed pursuit of Vedanta (Self-Knowledge) is possible.

Om Tat Sat

Ref.  John Turton on Understanding Irrational Thinking