Page 7 - NAMAH-Apr-2024

Editorial

The Physical Mind

The physical mind is that part of the mind Typically, the physical mind deals with
enmeshed in sensory schemata and is thus primitive behaviours and not with intellectual
at the lowest end of the mind-range. It goes stuff. The physical mind is that part of the
on ruminating habitual and trivial thoughts mind-range closest to the Inconscience. The
that are usually related to life’s ordinary Inconscience is a stark denial of Reality and
preoccupations. Ordinarily, we are not represents a negation of consciousness and
always thinking of great intellectual stuff or imparts the sense of negativity, pessimism,
creative things but dealing with everyday falsehood, doom and cessation of life to the
matter. We think whether we have locked physical mind, which then goes on repeating
the door properly or whether we have not and magnifying these issues (1).
forgotten to switch off the cooking gas
cylinder connection or whether our daughter The Principle of Automaticity
has returned from school safely. These are
trivial, commonplace thoughts that go on The repetitive habitual thoughts of the
revolving and ruminating at the lowest range physical mind arise de novo from the matrix
of the mind — the physical mind. A great of the physical consciousness and cannot be
exaggeration of these ruminating stuff leads simplistically explained by the psychoanalytic
to the development of Obsessive-Compulsive theory of resurgence of repressed material.
Disorder (OCD). Yoga psychology recognises the resurgence
of repressed materials but such repressions
represent material usually rejected from
planes of consciousness above the physical
mind.

The habitual patterns of the physical mind
can be better explained not by resurgence
of repressed material but by the principle of
automaticity, which is now used to explain
many habitual patterns like most of the
operations of executive function of ADHD
children. The principle of automaticity that
explains habitual behavioural patterns has
to be differentiated from the phenomenon
of pathological automatism where acts are

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