Stefan at the keyboard.
Ever since I was a child, vulgar language has bothered me. Even relatively mild expressions like “shut your mouth” instead of “please be quiet” felt like nails on a chalkboard to me.
After I started studying psychology, I learned that there are two ways the mind operates: the polarizing lower mind and the integrative higher mind.
Different authors, from William James (the father of modern psychology) to Daniel Kahneman (the first psychologist to receive the Nobel Prize), have used different names for these two concepts.
But we’re not going to turn this into a history or terminology lesson. We’ll keep things very simple, as you’d expect from a two-minute article.
The polarizing lower mind is something we share with animals. Every animal seeks to eat (impulse) and avoids being eaten (instinct). So, the polarizing lower mind operates through separation, and its two mechanisms are impulse and instinct, as if they were pulling in opposite directions along a horizontal axis.
The integrative higher mind is capable of holding paradoxes (eg. the opposite of something true is also true). It’s the part of us that sees opportunities where everyone else sees only problems. Instead of impulse and instinct, here we have intuition, which shows us the other side of things. For example, it whispers, “This is too good to be true,” before we fall into a trap, or “it must be a silver lining in this,” when we’re going through a difficult time.
Many people confuse intuition with instinct and say, “I followed my instinct,” when, in fact, they followed their intuition. But the two are very different: intuition integrates complementary opposites, while instinct separates them.
Once you explore these concepts more deeply, you start seeing and hearing them everywhere. Statements like “I do whatever the f**k I want” are a very colorful expression of the polarizing lower mind. They essentially mean, “I do whatever my impulses and instincts dictate, whatever my animal nature tells me to do.”
We cannot get rid of our animal nature. As long as we have a physical body, we share this part with all mammals. So, the polarizing lower mind is not “bad.” We need it to survive.
But most spiritual traditions, from Hinduism to Christianity, speak about taming or bringing the “animal” within us under control. This is, in fact, the purpose of fasting, sexual abstinence, and ritual cleansing. It’s not about depriving the body of pleasure. It’s about restoring divine order and allowing the integrative higher mind to take the lead.
And once you understand this, you can choose for yourself the spiritual practices that are most effective for you.
Love and wisdom,
Monica and Stefan