I was recently listening to a religious lecture on spirituality. The lecturer talked about how the mind is constantly thinking and how one needs to stop this thinking and to be in complete control of the mind if one wants to attain complete spirituality or attain a higher level of spirituality. The lecturer talked about cognitive psychology and the ego and superego, with the human soul being the super ego and the mind being a sort of an id. The constant battle takes pleace between the nafs and the spirit. ANd most of us are controlled by our nafs (the mind). In order to be closer to God, ones' spirit needs to overtake the thoughts of the mind.
While listening to this, I realized what does CT have to say about this? We have never really discussed Spirituality in class as the spirit seem to be the opposite of the mind. Does this mean that if one is spiritual, he is void of critical thinking, or is it the one who is spiritual has the most control over his thinking? Also, the lecturer talked about being in such control over the mind that it stops thinking thoughts which are irrelevant, thinking of the future for example. He talked about staying in the present. Does critical thinking thus stop the spiritual growth?
This is very good question, I would like to reflect something about it, I think CT can be helpful in understanding ourselves' in terms of self-awareness and development, in the initial phases for example,I can understand about my actions why I am so hasty and inconsistent, this action or the thought process that produces this action can be modified, I can agree to this point that CT can do this.
ReplyDeleteSpiritualism is very deep, CT go along with logic and reasoning, but the spirit seems abstract and unreal in this frame of reference.
I think we must define what is reality for all of us to reach to the point of consensus...Where does spiritualism stands in terms of reality and logic ??
Are you questioning the existance of the spirit?
ReplyDeleteSufiism is also spirituality but does sufi saints apply critical thinking??
ReplyDelete@Observant:(for the sake of argument) YES, Iam questioning the existence of the spirt in terms of our consruction of reality and logic.
ReplyDelete@ Observant
ReplyDeleteSarmad is right.
CT provides us with the tools to be self reflective, & bring into conscious awareness what might be resident in our unconcious. But we need to purposefully (goal orientedly) use / actionalzie CT to be able to be reflective. It doe snot happen on its own.
On spirituality, I want to re-iterate that CT is 'not' the be all & end all means to understand & rationalize every phenomenon. It is big misconseptuion to think so! There are other genre of thinking, the scopes & natures of which are different from CT. They serve other purposes (s).
Similarly 'thinking' alone may not be the only way to get to undersand the nature of spirituality & its meaning (s), to ones self, others, etc.
If you are interested in 'spritual thinking', then google transpersonal philosophy & psychology (Eckhart Tolle), & also integral thinking (philosophy & psyhcology) of Ken Wilber. I also have lots of material on this...let me know if you are interested.
Regards,
Faheem
@ Raza
ReplyDeleteYour question is too general & not anchored to a specific enough context.
I mean how is it possible for anyone to answer such a question in this forum? None of us are experts on sufism (saints) & on critical thinking.
However, if it is a question of great interest to you, then you should research it. Either that, or reframe your question keeping SEE-I in mind. Ok?
Regards,
Faheem
What i still fail to understand that if one were to question the existance of the spririt that what about paranormal experiences? There are things which science has no proof over, how does a critical thinker percieve those?
ReplyDeleteFaith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. -Voltaire.
ReplyDeleteI think that one then leaves such things to faith. In my opinion it is foolish to rule out the existence of inexplicable things in our daily lives and thus because they are Unexplainable, therefore we need to have faith in our 'belief' about them. If you don't believe in them, because there isn't substantial proof to Validate its existence, thats your take on it. I don't believe that Critical thinking tries to give the answers i think that it only provides us the map/the route it thinks we ought to take to arrive to the best destination, a destination we want(and hence Choose)!
I dont think there is co-relation between spirituality and C.T becuas they are two different things and can never exist together .
ReplyDelete