Page 42 - NAMAH-Jan-2022

Namah Vol. 29, Issue 4, 15th January 2022

Elsewhere, Sri Aurobindo describes two types in OCD is a habitual and automatic behaviour
of automatism: that is strenuous and exhausting and drains
i. a blind automatism away all energies. It is not pursued for the
ii. a trained and developed automatism joy of perfection but for the compelling and
tremendous insecurity associated with the
The blind automatism was a mechanical repetition.
movement where the mind-principle did
not intervene. It was “a kind of automatism
carrying on its work in the physical plane
without any intervention of the mind and in
parts even beyond any possibility of direct
observation by the mind or, if conscious
or observable, still proceeding or capable of
continuing, when once started, by an apparently
mechanical action not needing direction by the
mind and continuing so long as the mind does
not intervene (3).” Perfection in a spiritual gestalt

It is interesting to note that in recent times In the spiritual gestalt, perfection is a dynamic
there has been a sea-change in the approach value that shifts its nuances as one progresses
to understanding OCD. Instead of the old through hierarchies of consciousness, whereas
psychoanalytic explanations, focus is now in OCD one comes back again and again
shifting to neurological circuits in the brain. to the same stereotyped perfection. In a
Neuro-imaging evidence is pointing to the spiritual perspective, there is a change in the
involvement of lateral and medial orbitofrontal denouement at every plane of consciousness
cortices, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex so that one comes back not to the same
and amygdalo cortical circuitry along with organisation of perfection but every time to
cortico-striatal circuitry in the pathogenesis a new integer. Every time one has to start
of OCD. This approach gives full credence from a new denouement. Every time one has
to Sri Aurobindo’s scientific approach to his to start from a new height of perfection that
integral model of Consciousness, where the surpasses the previous equation.
physical mind which supports the neuronal
circuitry, is the matrix that supports the The Mother remarked that one could progress
blind automatism of physical consciousness very far on the path of perfection if at every
without necessarily the intervention of the moment one could live to the utmost that one
cognitive principle. could be (4). That automatically implies that
at the next moment, one could live at a yet
This involvement of the physical mind in higher mode and therefore the denouement
OCD explains why psychoanalytic and other of perfection can change from moment to
related depth therapies are not as effective moment as one progresses in consciousness.
in that realm as behavioural and cognitive- In other words, what was perfection in
behavioural therapies. The pursuit of perfection one sphere yesterday has to be surpassed

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