We folks usually talk about ‘peace of mind’ but the question is biological, which part of our body are we referring to?
Yes, it is true that we are not referring to any specific part of our body because ‘mind’ is considered a part and parcel of our mental faculty that works in synchronization with the complex network of the neuron cells in the human brain.
The enormity of the number of cells estimated to be close to 100 billion neuron cells makes the understanding of the brain processing capability far more difficult because of the tens of thousands of cross-communication between different modules of the human brain. Therefore, before we go to understand the complexity of the ‘human mind’, let us first become somewhat familiar with the basics of how human brain works.
The human brain is considered to be the most complex organ in our body and scientists have been investigating on the subject of the brain for nearly 100 years. Since last few decades, there have been major advances in the area of neuroscience at the behavioral and neural levels, but the long-standing issue of the neurobiological basis for variation in intelligence still remains unresolved.
The noble laureate and genius Albert Einstein agreed to donate his brain for research purposes and for over 60 years different segments of his brain has been used in several research institutes for further studies. What is surprising is that Einstein’s brain does not look any different from a normal sized human brain but also weighed the same as an average man’s brain except that they found the parietal lobe, slightly wider as well as more spherical compared to the control group of other specimen brains.
Therefore the biggest question that comes to one’s mind is whether it is possible to think like Einstein by merely have slightly wider or spherical parietal lobe? The logical answer would be ‘No’.
Although a lot of efforts are going into finding the hidden secrets of Einstein’s brain it will be next to impossible to know all the experiential learning of this great man because the most important and sensitive part of Einstein’s mental faculty, the ‘mind’ is not accessible!
Basically, the human brain has four lobes, namely temporal, parietal, occipital and frontal but ‘brain stem’ and ‘cerebellum’ are the rudimentary parts of the human brain also known as the mid-brain or primary brain which is the most primitive part of the human brain.
The four lobes mentioned above are considered the part of the neocortex (two hemispheres) and is called the ‘secondary brain’ which is supposed to have evolved over several hundreds of thousands of years on the top of the primary brain.
The mid-brain as the name suggests is in the middle or center of the brain encased inside the secondary brain. One end of the ‘brain stem’ is connected to mid-brain and another end to the spinal cord which carries a bundle of nerves consisting of sensory fibers and motor fibers for carrying impulses from the brain and also relaying messages from various parts of our body back to the brain. The ‘cerebellum’ is fixed to the ‘brain stem’ and is responsible for the essential life supporting functions such respiration, heartbeat, and blood pressure.
Therefore brain is like a central processing unit (CPU) of a supercomputer and has the ability to do high-speed parallel processing as well as carry out multiple tasks. However all messages and information that go or come from this central processing brain is invariably connected or entirely based on the sensory organs of the human body like visual (eyesight), auditory(hearing), olfactory(smell), tactile(touch by feeling) and savory(taste buds) mechanisms.
Obviously, all information stored in the memory cells of the brain which are primarily the past data is entirely dependent on previous experiences of an individual. Therefore information storage of an individual’s brain is completely dependent on the exposure of the person as well as the environmental factors.
Thus human intelligence to a great extent is primarily data based and therefore the networking or wiring of billions of neuron cells is already pre-fixed and therefore could be considered non-plastic in nature to a very great extent.
However, the latest theory and practical application of neuroscience have now seen an extraordinary revelation regarding re-wiring of neural circuits of the human brain and a new subject is born which is called as neuro-plasticity.
The basic definition of neuro-plasticity is that ‘human mind’ is so powerful that by repeated auto-suggestion, some of the brain circuits can be re-wired and irrespective of the age of the person one can get rid of entrenched old habits and develop new behaviors and new skills. This is something mind-boggling but it is true and has been proven in several cases except that it calls for a lot of hard-work and highly focused exercises.
It is true that a severely disturbed mind could cause havoc in a person’s life and in extreme cases people are so depressed and frustrated that they go to the extent of putting end to their misery, extinguishing their life by committing suicide!
In olden days, wise people talked about detachment but in the current context, our modern world has either too much of dependence or too much of independence which is seen as self-inflicted because of too much expectation either from outside or from self. It is nothing but always seeking the fruit and more damaging would be the anticipation of a bigger fruit.
So gaining satisfaction from work or for that matter any activity is of paramount importance for ‘peace of mind’ and therefore the fruit (result), to be precise the size of the fruit (especially for modern world), in the action or duty is only secondary. This is one of the biggest secrets to attain 'peace of mind.'
It is now proven that ‘mind control’ comes through some exercises like meditation, but at the same time staying focused in what one does(duty) is far more important than the benefit that accrues through one’s action.
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