Much more than just mind

B. L. Chakoo

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, ‘Universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and the attention of/for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement [integration in our lives] is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

In this powerful, eloquent, deeply neurobiological and spiritual book, The Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Daniel J. Siegel — who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and author of three New York bestsellers: Brainstorm, The Whole-Brain, and No-Drama Discipline — insightfully argues with scientific evidence that this ‘integration’ is the essence of ‘a healthy body, mental life, and relationships’. This book is an explosion of knowledge and enlightenment. Here Siegel’s deepest hope is to join with you to elucidate the nature of our minds, illuminate our beliefs and uncover our disbeliefs, demonstrate ‘the mind’s central importance in our lives, and offer some basic ways to define the mind so we can then explore what a healthy mind might actually be’.

Mind… is a book that grabs you quickly and deeply. Siegel affectionately shares with you his scientific and philosophical journey far beyond the view that mind is just a dynamic stuff or simply related in fundamental ways to brain activity. Mind could be ‘something more than simply an outcome of the firing of neurons in the brain’.

At once erudite and pleasurably readable, with a rich fusion of neuroscience, neuroplasticity, mindfulness, and a language of subjectivity, this book will give you a clear view of the mind’s essence beyond ‘lists of its functions’— which is missing from a wide range of fields that deal with the mind, from ‘clinical practice and education to scientific research and philosophy’. Siegel has written a truly extraordinary book that provides you with the wonder and science of mind — which, according to him, is the essence of ‘our fundamental nature, our deepest sense of being alive, here, right now, in this moment’. Perhaps, then, mind is a term that includes consciousness, aspects of subjectivity, and information processing, ‘including its problem-solving and behavioural control’.

Epic in its scope and heroic in its inspiration, the book gives us an access to Daniel Siegel’s experiences in exploring the nature of mind from a vast array of disciplines: interpersonal neurobiology, neuro-plasticity, quantum physics, anthropology, and psychology. Mind… is, therefore, one of the most compelling and inspiring books that can literally rewire your brain. Indeed, it is an optimistic and insightful testament to the power of mind and ability to overcome ‘our sense of a fully separate identity’. The book is not only brilliant and provocative but also revolutionary in its approach to the very nature of mind and existence. In fact, Siegel navigates the reader through a labyrinth of intriguing questions (concerning ‘interconnected integration’, our relationships with each other, happiness, longevity, medical well-being, wisdom and compassion) and then offers undoubtedly clear answers that lead to a better understanding of neuroscience and spirituality.

A captivating journey of discovery, the book contains 10 chapters, and the most tempting chapters are What is the Mind? Is the Mind’ Subjective Reality Real? And Where is Mind? These grant us immediate and intimate access to Siegel’s quest for ‘certainty in an uncertain world’. Here the restlessness of his approach — roaming across physical and cultural consciousnesses, borrowing and revising as he sees fit—allows him to tread on the territory (of spirituality) most traditional neuroscientists are reluctant to touch. While eschewing conventional definitions of the mind, he, through his interdisciplinary approach, sees it as ‘a mythic organ’ in the human brain—which has an ability to make us ‘a more universal we’ that can enable you to sense your membership in a larger humanity, ‘one that is fundamentally interwoven with all living beings’.

In the concluding chapters — Connecting Consciousness, and Humankind — the book reaches an ending that seems fitting: ‘separate from you and separate from this large whole’ seems to be an ‘optical delusion’ of our consciousness.

In brief, Dan Siegel has the rare ability to take complicate scientific theories and turn them into readable narratives about what our consciousness will be like in future. Mind... is a classic book, a book that parallels Rene Descartes’ search for reliable and certain knowledge.